Rebellion: The Last Rebel
by McPirate
Summary: Rumours of deceit sends Angus back to the Triisland area.
1. Prologue: The true treasure

Prologue: The true treasure.

Angus McDow was lying on a large bed inside a dark room lit up by lanterns filled with oils. The walls were decorated lightly with tapestries and the bed was everything a nobleman in the 1660's could dream of; extravagant and amazingly solid, probably made by a master carpenter, out of the finest rainforest trees.

Angus was just starting to awake. He now with a dazed, and still dreaming mind, looked around curiously.

Ah! He was back! Back in the eternal bliss, back at the place that had been his heaven a long time ago. He was back into the guestroom of the Mêlée Island mansion. He was a guest of the governor, and should soon get up so that he and the governor could continue their planning of the overthrowing of the evil VoodooLady that ruled the area.

Angus forced his mind out of his dreams about flying carts and monkey-men. He was now ready to start the task that would change his future, but then, when he awoke he understood his mistake. It had all been a dream, just a poor innocent dream. Angus looked around in despair. Once again, the walls would disappear before his eyes, once again, the lights from the scented oils would fade into nothing, and once again, he would be in the hell that he now called reality. For several lifetimes (as it seemed now), he had lived this life of nightmares (The pains had only stopped when he had lost all hope and clung to the promise of rest.). He knew that once again, he would be forced to enter a journey filled with murder, hate, madness, and despair. It was just a matter of minutes, before his brain had awoken enough for him to be cast into the world that for an eternity had tried to kill him.

He sat up in the bed and looked with wonder upon the rags that sparsely covered his legs and chest; there where huge tears in them and the colours of the fabric had long faded, as had their appearance; now they were barely hanging on his body at all. Through all holes and cuts in the fabrics scars could be seen; hundreds upon hundreds of scars there were, intersecting each other with their different lengths and depths. Only his face had been seemingly lucky. While his body almost looked like it had been dipped into acid, and was so filled with scars that clean skin was hard to decipher. His face was unhurt. Only a thin, tiny cut was visible between his eyebrows heading down towards his nose. This however looked more like a wrinkle than a scar, and served Angus well, since it gave him a more serious look. He had before looked rather young and careless, and perhaps even dim, with eyes that seemed to marvel at anything around him. Now it seemed that Angus looked around carefully, and eyed everything around him with care and thought. It suited his lifestyle well, one might say.

Angus, unable to sleep any further, left his bed and looked around carefully, wondering how long it would take before this idyllic bedroom would change into the nightmare that he knew would come.

Then slowly increasing in volume, he heard muffled cries from the tapestries. He took one long step backwards towards the room's door.

He had just taken his hand on the door handle when the tapestries fell with a shuddering gasp and the cries became clearer. From beneath one of the cloths, a large grey and brown-spotted rat now ran out. It sniffed around curiously, and spat a devilish cry when it saw Angus standing just before the door. Then it sprang forward, followed by an endless flock of other rats. It stopped right in front of Angus, and started to speak.

"You recognise me?" the rat asked, while he ran screeching around the floor in circles in an attempt to freshen the Scotsman's memory. "Of course you wouldn't remember any stinking rat with my marks." He spat in disgust, while swiftly increasing in size. "You don't even remember stepping on a rat with my marks, do you?"

Angus looked shocked upon the rat, which now was half the size of himself.

"It was a sunny and cloudless afternoon …" the rat told with great insight. "But for our humble rat family, it was a dark and mournful night, in which our poor brother, son, and uncle was trampled to death by a careless Nevis barkeep."

The rat was now at the same size as Angus, and was sneering at him.

"It was him!" one of the smaller rats cried out.

The giant rat turned and picked up the smaller rat and petted him tenderly.

"I know," he said to him, "and soon I will get my revenge, and you and your friends will get some long awaited dinner."

A giant roar came from the rat horde behind the giant, and suddenly Angus was in a wild forest followed by thousand screaming rats, hunting for their dinner, and lead by a giant monster-rat hoping for a revenge for a killing in Nevis years ago.

The hunt went on for many miles through a giant oak forest and then a wide-open plain, before Angus finally reached a pine forest. There he hoped he could finally find more cover.

The forest was, however, filled with millions of wailing forest-mice. Angus was stomping on the small mice as he ran to get away from the rats, and many of the mice died.

"Oh! So you're letting your anxiety go over the mice now huh?" the leader rat cried out. "Be sure! My cousins will grow up fast enough..."

Then, within seconds, all the mice and following rats had grown into the same size as the giant leader rat. Now thousands upon thousands of screaming monsters surrounded him.

Then out of nowhere, a rope came down. The rope shimmered happily with a glow of calming blue.

Angus grasped it gladly and started to climb. Soon he had climbed away from the monsters and only their faint cries could be heard, echoing from the depths beneath him. Then suddenly he felt a sharp sting in his left palm, then as he grasped for a new lift, another sting in his right hand. He then felt a warm mass flowing from his hands, and smelled the oozing smell of fresh blood. He looked with despair upon his hands that held the rope and saw to his shock that they where both filled with blood, and that the rope had millions of long and tin spikes strutting out of reddish-glowing fibres. Angus shortly let go of the rope, and started falling. The squealing yells of the rats and mice grew louder and louder, Angus knew that he now would fall straight into their claws, and he knew that he would soon be their dinner.

The sounds grew louder and louder, now it was like a great roar that sent hurtful stabs into his ears and head. It grew louder and louder.

Then suddenly, Angus was stabbed in the shoulder. He could feel claws grasping for blood. He could sense that his arm would soon be ripped of. Then, suddenly he heard from the rat that must have stood behind him, a squealing voice.

"Master?"

Suddenly all thoughts in Angus mind seamed to scream in old tormented agony, and he froze as everything around him turned blendingly white.

All his senses disappeared in a flash, he could not smell, and his vision was blended. A second or a lifetime went and a faint echo of the rat's word came back to his ear, and the piercing claw seemed to have turned into a soft careful touch.

Angus slowly turned, and in what seemed like an eternity, wondered about which gruesome episode he now had entered.

Angus slowly turned around towards the direction of the hand on his shoulder. The sight made him freeze completely, and he only stared at the creature behind him with open shocked eyes.

"Master, is everything well?" the creature asked carefully, now with an insecure human voice.

Then everything snapped.

Angus got hold of his mind, all his memories, and the whiteness became replaced with the old world of horror. Angus flew, with the creature's hand on his shoulder, through all that had happened to Angus since he had entered the altar.

And there they travelled; a maniac's dreams could not be worse, or more horrid. Variation on variations of different dream-like realities. A horrid slideshow appeared before their eyes before Angus drowned in a monstrous sea of eel-like waves with different grim colours. His mind let go of reality, and he once again (as he had thousands of times before) let go and wished for the lulling comfort of death.

.

He was now back in the guestroom in the Mêlée Mansion.

Finally, Angus would rest again from the horrid truths and hellish realities.

He went towards a bowl of water, dipped a cloth into the hot water, and took the cloth towards his tired shoulder, ready to wipe the warm blood away.

He looked up and saw straight into a mirror, and in the reflection, he saw the sight that he could not believe in earlier. There on his shoulder was not a claw, or even a paw, but a small and tender hand. A warmth flowed vigorously trough the hand, and into his back. Angus, now apathetic after timeless dreads, looked without seeming interest at the hand.

He did not dare to look any further. Experience had taught him that he should not follow his curiosity no matter how tempting it could be, and in his current state, he was too tired to even dream about disobeying his self-taught rule.

He only wanted away from the horrid world he lived in; he wanted rest.

"Help!" he whimpered, still not taking his eyes off the perfectly shaped hand; slowly starting to fear that it would disappear soon, either by him falling asleep, or it changing into a giant snake or something.

But no answer came to his plea, and tired of it all, Angus glanced up towards the creature's head, as to finally stop the insanity that now seemed to have invaded his only safe place.

When Angus looked up, his eyes met a pair of large, deep brown, woman eyes, filled with shock and despair.

Then, expecting a monster to explode from the girl's face, Angus fell to the floor, giving up all hope that might remain.

"Help!" he whimpered again, so faintly that it was practically inaudible.

Then from inside his head, a woman with a soft voice answered.

"You must leave this room."

"Help!" Angus again cried on top of his voice, clearly desperate, and filled with panic.

"I cannot help you if you don't leave..." He now started to hear the voice too, as if the voice was slowly transforming from inside his head and to the room itself.

"You must leave this room." A pair of strong but gentle hands pulled up Angus and he looked at the woman who now was crying as she spoke.

"Help," Angus begged for a third time, more in a hunt for a reassurance of the command than in despair.

"Leave," The woman said to him while looking at him with pity. "Leave, and I can make it all better."

Angus stumbled to his feet, and wobbled towards the door. He opened it and saw straight into what hell must be like.

"Leave..."

He jumped into the inferno, and let go of all hope of staying sane and alive.

The next moment he was flying through a cloud of billions of different colours. He could see nothing clear, all was rather blurry; but his thoughts where starting to come back to him in way which seemed strange to him, as if he had never thought anything before. And suddenly in a flash, he saw that all around him was changed, into heaven. And suddenly he stood outside a sturdy oak door. He was inside an endless hallway, much like the hallway of the Governor's Mansion, but this hallway only had one single door.

He tapped it gently before entering.

He was back into the guestroom. And for the first time since he entered the altar, the room, and world around him was fast, sturdy, and unchangeable.

He closed the door, went towards the bed, and threw himself onto it.

Instead of feeling like floating on a cloud, Angus fell hard into a soft mattress. Things have changed, he thought.  Then shortly after he fell asleep; and dreamt just like he had lived, for what seemed like an eternity.

.

There was dark now.

Only darkness was now left of Angus' dream, and he was now forcing himself out of it. His senses started reporting their observations to him. He now felt the soft mattress supporting his back, and could faintly hear a wind rushing through some curtains.

He slowly opened his eyes, still tired, and tried to recuperate as ancient memories came back to his mind.

He was lying on his side, and was therefore looking straight into a bed-table lit by a thin ray of light coming from an open window nearby.

Angus lay there dozing, ready to fall into the calm realm of sleep again. Then a voice with clearness as of a small spring river rolling past small fields of apple-trees came from behind his bed. Angus looked up and caught a glint of a memory that quickly faded from his awakening brain. It was the woman who he had mistaken for a rat, but his memory of her was rather bizarre and desperate.

Now that image however was shortly gone, for he had glanced upon a wonder of beauty. Angus gazed amazed at the woman in front of him, and he could not keep his eyes from her perfectly formed, smooth olive brown body, nicely decorated in an amazing dress of brown leather and many coloured feathers. Her face was puzzled but open. Her lips were inviting, her cheeks slightly red, her nose slightly small (showing her youth), and her eyes were deep and searching. They where brown and had a depth Angus never had seen before in his life. They seemed to hold knowledge to all times and ages, but had at the same time the playfulness of an innocent child. She smiled, and it seemed to Angus that her eyes glittered slightly as she did, as if they where two bright stars on the night skies, radiating their glory to the world.

He smiled foolishly in reply, totally knocked back by her beauty. He thought that he was dreaming, so he slowly started to close his eyes, so that he forever could treasure the moment.

"No!" she protested with her glorious tinkling voice, which seemed so full of life.

Angus opened his eyes again, not daring to disappoint the girl in front of him. He again focused on her deep eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she quickly added, as if ashamed of her outburst, "but I don't want you to sleep for ages again. You have been unable to awake for three of my day's now."

Angus heard fear in her voice and he felt sorry for the young woman, and quickly assured her that he would not fall asleep again. Angus then continued to look at her face, and like a traveller explored new glorious sightings of her. The girl on the other hand seemed very distressed and nervous; she seemed to have a personal fight with herself before she broke the silence again.

"Could I ask you a question, dear lord?" Her voice was filled with awe, and she had bent her face towards the floor.

Angus sat silent a while before the question really got into him. And he wondered why she called him "lord". He could not find a good answer.

"What is it?" he choked out, so inaudible that even himself could not hear it.

"I presume you want your powers back now, right?" the woman said, while still looking at the floor. Angus did not understand what she meant by the question, and was just about to ask, when she continued, "I wouldn't have taken it from you if you hadn't asked for help." Angus opened his mouth for a replying question, but the woman was too quick for him. "I know it wasn't my place to question you, but your actions seemed so strange. First, I hoped that all the horrifying images and worlds that you created were just tools for the coming destruction of Intombulala, and therefore I left you alone to your creating and thoughts, while I waited for you to contact me. Then, as time went by, and months followed weeks, I became worried. Therefore I went searching for you, not managing to live in the brutal world you had made for yourself and me. And then as I called out your name, and you turned with that pain in your face, I didn't know what to do. It was as if you were afraid of me, but I also noted that the pain, suffering, and remorse in your eyes had been there long and were a product of your own making, and therefore I could not let go of you. And when you begged for help, I knew that you could not handle your force any longer, that the force had started to take control over you. And I knew that one more day would either madden, or kill you.  But I could not understand it... Why should you have problem controlling the powers you granted me long ago?

 I thought long about these things, before it all became clear for me.

I have changed it, I have changed the properties of the powers you granted me; and in doing so, I have made the force unusable to you… I thought that the changing of the powers would be a good thing, since it made the creation of this world possible, in which I could foresee the growth of nature, before letting these elements out to the world. But now I see my error. And thus I feel I must explain why I did it in the first place." The young woman silenced for a while, while despair and fear showed itself more and more clearly upon her sweet face. " I... I... I had troubles with handling all nature when I was younger, and... Well, I found that this test-world would be a good idea, and I was right. In here I live my thoughts, like in a dream, and can therefore test out new ways for nature to flourish while living among the plants, and animals, and feeling the storm, and heat soaring through my body, and I can relax when I have time for it.

But you knew nothing about these powers, and still now, I have only given you one fragment of information on all that I have done here." She silenced while looking curiously at Angus. Angus' face was now a mixture between amazement (over the beauty of the girl) and wonder (over the tale). This somehow made her more relaxed, so she continued to talk. "When I realised that you could not possibly handle the powers without my explaining about this world, I had to help you, and the only reasonable way was by taking back the powers that you gained when entering the gate, until I have explained fully how things work around here now. Still, I feel guilty though, guilty for changing how things work. I have changed the powers, I have changed the way things are created, and thus I am forever guilty in my sins!"

Angus could now see the sun from the window reflected in the tears that dropped down from the girls cheeks, and in the reflection, Angus felt unbearable pain and guilt, though a proper reason for the guilt he could not sense.

He wanted to help her feel better, but as he studied her and her feelings of sorrow, her tale finally reached his mind fully. It shocked him and he asked with great wonder, "You mean that the hell that I have lived, for what now seems like an eternity, was my own creation? That it was all created by my own mind?"

The girl now bowed even lower towards the ground, and her affirming "yes" was almost inaudible.

"But what about my wounds? Are those only in my mind?"

The girl now lifted her head a bit higher, seeking refuge in explaining about her masterpiece, "What you think becomes reality. It is very like human dreams, and are controlled in the same way. The things that happen, however, happen in reality, and if you die, you die for real." She stopped a long while after saying the part about dying. She, as Angus, knew well that Angus had been very close to death numerous of times. "But," she continued, as to comfort Angus, "I can understand it, if this is a new experience for you. I personally don't know if gods dream or not…"

Angus just stared dumbly at her, trying to match up the new information with all that he had experienced.

The girl noted his bewilderment, and started on an explanation that she thought would clear up the matter "The force you granted me, my lord. Have you already forgotten? It is the force you granted me, when I was young and you were weary. It was the force of nature. But alas, I have changed the properties of the power since you ruled here. Now you must live in the world that you create, and what you create here can then be introduced to the world. I had to test out new things before I let them out on the world. Too many mistakes I have done in the past, and making this world might be one of them. Basically, this world is what your thoughts want them to be, and therein lies the force, within thoughts inside the holy altar." She stopped a moment to recollect her thoughts before she continued. "What else is a fitting name for a god, than master or lord? My tongue can only find these words worthy enough, but now I see that even they can't bring your greatness enough praise."

"God?!" Angus was completely bewildered. "You must clearly be mistaken, I'm just a Scottish highlander, and although I'm the last standing member of the clan McDow, I clearly ain't no god or any noble, not by renown nor stature. Only in European propaganda about The New World have I heard about us Europeans being mistaken for gods, which we surely aren't."

The girl now seemed almost in panic.

"But, but!" she stammered out. "Only gods can enter this place..."

"I don't know" Angus said, confused by the strange speech of the girl, "But I did what the instruction said, I dropped some blood into that bowl near the altar, and now I'm here."

"The altar!" she exclaimed, both surprised and shocked. "Of course! Ah, my youth's faults will surely haunt me to my last breath. I should never have let those priests in here! And now I have sealed the fates of the world forever. Never again will the gods rule in harmony. Now man has fooled Xyzta, and the gifts of the gods will never come to the rightful, but rather to the sinful."

She looked sad and thoughtful, but at the same time stern, and when she noticed Angus' bewilderment, she smiled at him and added, "But these things are for me to muse over, and not something that we should talk about. Let me introduce myself properly, I am Xyzta, princess of the Mayas, and daughter of Qerx the son of the panther."

Thousands of questions rolled around in Angus' head, but he could not be rude and drown this woman with questions, especially such a beautiful woman.

"And I am Angus McDow," Angus replied humbly, "a humble Scotsman who is very honoured to meet such a fine lady as yourself, your majesty."

Xyzta laughed, what seemed to Angus a heavenly and slightly chuckling laughter.

"Please no drilled politeness to me, Angus." Xyzta smiled a glorious smile as she said this "I'm not a princess anymore. All my family and their relatives are long dead now; even their children's children are dead now. You should therefore consider me an equal to yourself, even though I'm a couple of thousand years older than you."

Angus was shocked by the last comment but relaxed greatly when she smiled at him, even if she where ten thousand years, he would always adore her young body, and deep eyes.

Then Xyzta bent over Angus and kissed him on his forehead, just between his eyes and on top of his only facial scar. Angus instantly fell to sleep again, dreaming a great dream about a newfound love.


	2. The end and the beginning

Chapter 1: The end and the beginning.

The years went by and Angus and Xyzta lived happily in their creation-world, and as the years slowly passed, they grew closer and closer to each other. Xyzta, lonely after centuries of solitude, and Angus, dazzled by the beauty of Xyzta, made a nice couple, and after a while they even had a child together. They named him Jim.

Jim was now six years old, after the years that Xyzta had set the creation world to have. It was now May in the actual world, and six months had passed since Angus had entered the altar.

Angus was deep in sleep on a couch, resting under the shadow of a great oak tree in the middle of a great green field.

Jim was playing at the field with some Barqubas; some dog-like animals, which turned out to be great pets, but were too friendly to ever survive the real world. Xyzta was in her watching tower, looking over it all.

Life was good, and only the fact that the VoodooLady now had full control over the netherworld could dim that fact. These years had been the best years in Angus' life.

Ten glorious years had passed and Angus had experienced greater joy than anything he had felt before; before that, he had lived through what seemed like a century of misery and despair. The strange thing was that he had not aged a bit. You could guess that Angus after ten years of lazy and joyful living and uncounted years of misery and torment would start to get wrinkles and that his body would have passed its fullest capability, but no; he seemed just as young as he had been when he was eighteen and had entered the altar. Only the thin wrinkle-like scar between his eyes could give any appearance of age.

Angus would have believed that he was living in some time-hole or something if it had not been for young Jim. Jim had been growing like a normal child, something that seemed to be quite a mystery to his mother, and aged and learned as the days and years passed by. He was the only one of them who aged at all.

But the mystery of Jim's aging didn't concern Angus as much as it did Xyzta, Angus had long ago abandoned the hope of understanding Xyzta's creation-world and he assumed that Jim's aging, as well as their own halt in aging, was just a part of the many mysteries that he daily encountered in Xyzta's world. Xyzta however, after years of wonder and study, seemed to let go of the mystery, and had now started to explain to Jim about the dream world she had created. He was on a daily basis tutored by Xyzta in the fine arts of creating new species and weather. He also got the opportunity to control the creation-world from time to time. Angus on the other hand wouldn't even dare to ask Xyzta for an opportunity such as this, he too clearly remembered the agony and despair of the worlds he had created for himself after entering the altar.

Angus turned in his sleep.

Lately he had had these strange dreams, and they were worrying him.

He had been dreaming about his old fellow crewmembers: Captain Marley, Young Lindy, Rap Scallion and Rum Rogers. He had a recurring dream where they were sitting around a table with a map of the Caribbean, and as Captain Marley pointed out points on the map (in each dream there was another location, it started with the major colonies: Port Royale, St.Kitts, Panama, Havana, San Juan... Then it went on to small unimportant colonies like Trinidad, Villa Hermosa, and Port au Prince, and lastly these few days he had been pointing at locations with no colonies at all.), the points would highlight in a dark-reddish colour and sparks would erupt and start to burn the paper. All the people around the table would then be very afraid, and as they watched, the complete map would burn and dissolve into ashes. Then a horrible mocking laughter would follow shortly after, and as they all turn, they would see the VoodooLady standing in a corner smiling. Then one of them would start to laugh too, as if to finally tell the others that he had been deceiving them, but his laughter would be nothing Angus had ever heard before, and Angus would always wake up before he could get in front of them, and see who was laughing...

Now, once again, Angus heard the menacing laughter; and it grew louder and louder. It grew all until the point when Angus realised who it was who was laughing.

An almost shrieking, rolling laughter mocked him in its deceit. Angus clearly recognised it now; it was his own son Jim's laughter, almost mad with joy, and as he realised this, he saw that the backhead of the deceiver was his son's. He sprang forward to see if it was true, and awoke shivering in Xyzta's arms. He heard Jim laughing in the background, and as he turned towards him, he saw that one of the animals had managed to create a castle out of grass and dirt.

Angus breathed heavily, still with the fear from the dream roaming in his mind.

Xyzta pressed his head against her bosom and comforted him,

"My poor poor Angus." She soothed, while putting her head gently towards his. "The dreams won't touch you anymore."

Angus when hearing this last comment quickly got hold of his fear and forced himself out of the embarrassing grasp of his loved one. He was a _man_ after all, not a little child.

"I know dear," He said, as an excuse for his actions.

"It is time for your breakfast," Xyzta answered, understanding, though not liking, Angus' instincts for manner and pride.

Angus eagerly agreed to that and followed Xyzta gladly to a table filled with tropical vegetable delights.

"Jim ate a couple of hours ago," Xyzta explained, "so it will be just us two today."

Angus was glad for that. He always loved being alone with her; then he could allow himself to just marvel over her looks (still ten years after their first encounter he loved to just look at her).

Angus took a bite of a juicy squash and smiled as he watched Xyzta taking a bite out of a ripe apple.

A long silence followed.

"Was it the same dream as the others?" Xyzta finally asked.

"Yes," Angus answered. He looking depressed at Xyzta, he hated the dream, and he hated it even more for the fact that it seem to make Xyzta sad. He could endure it forever, if it didn't hurt her so.

"I had this thought today…" Xyzta started. "And this feeling…" Angus looked up and understood that Xyzta was troubled. "And I think it has something to do with your dreams…"

"Yes?"

"Well, you know that this realm of mine has a gate in the living world?" Xyzta was referring to the altar, and Angus told her that he understood what she was referring to. "And that the gate is situated on an island flying thousands of feet over the living world?" Angus again agreed in understanding. "Then think about this: What if your dream is in reality a prophecy? What if the dream shows that your mistrusting friends, who used to be rebels, now are working for the VoodooLady and against you and me? They never forgave you for the treason they claimed you did towards them, and they might have become mad enough to bargain with the VoodooLady. Even if they now are hiding away wherever they might find cover, they might accidentally bring both the recipe and map to the VoodooLady, and then the whole world will be in danger."

Angus stared at her in disbelief. "You mean that you don't know what they are doing?"

"The VoodooLady grows stronger every day that passes Angus," Xyzta said in a stern, almost angry tone. It seemed that she almost took the question as an insult. But Angus could see that there was also another feeling there. Maybe doubt? "After you gave me back my powers, I haven't been able to see anything except things over and beneath the cloud, with its island."

"But why now?" Xyzta looked puzzled over this question from Angus, so he asked a more directly. "Why should my former crewmembers betray their cause now? Why should they wait ten years (possibly a lot more) before they turn to the VoodooLady?"

"You mean I have never told you?" Xyzta asked shocked. Angus did not know what she was talking about, so she had to explain to him. "Well, it really is strange that you have lived here for ten years without knowing this, but when I created this world, I did so in an effort to ease my problems with controlling the whole world; but that wasn't enough, still things were going way too fast for me. So I decided to slow down the time in my own creation-world." Angus froze and silently tried to comprehend what she was saying. "In the living world, only six months have passed since you entered the altar."

Angus sat silently, thinking hard about this time riddle.

"So there is a strong possibility that they haven't turned to the VoodooLady yet." Xyzta said so that Angus would again think about the serious issue they were talking about. "And as for the question of delay for my concern (after all, six months is a long time); I didn't get this through before this morning. I was trying to look trough the deep dark red fumes of the triisland area, while musing over you and your dreams. Then suddenly a ray of light went through the clouds, and I thought I could see the map over the cloud-island waved in the air by an unknown person. And I thought I could hear praises shouted for the VoodooLady." Xyzta now looked upon Angus with a look, which seemed like guilt; it almost seemed to Angus that she felt guilty for seeing these things.

"So you fear that this world might be in danger?" Angus asked, and on the affirming nod from his dearest, he continued. "And you and Jim might die, if the treachery isn't undone?"

"If they were to turn to the VoodooLady, and I couldn't withstand her powers; then I, you and Jim would surely die. But that is not the worst." Angus looked puzzled, almost angered at Xyzta, he could not possibly decipher what worse fate than the killing of Jim and Xyzta could be. "If the VoodooLady would enter this realm, and destroy the one controlling the powers in here, she could herself take control. Then the entire earth would be at stake if she learned enough of this world and its powers."

Angus, now fully realising the horrible scenario, jumped up from his chair in pure shock.

"But how can we stop this from happening?" he asked, confused, though he was perfectly aware of the only possible answer.

"Well, it isn't certain it will happen at all. It might…" Xyzta said before Angus interrupted her.

"But it _might_ happen, right?" Angus asked, and after the sad affirming nod added, "Then I must go, right?" The last question was unnecessary and served only to hurt Xyzta. He was trying to force her to make his decision, even though they both knew that this was the only possible way.

"I could go, perhaps," Xyzta tried, instantly understanding how pathetic it sounded. It almost sounded mocking.

Angus, on the other hand, was too moved to notice that, and seemed to believe that she meant it.

"No, no," he started. "You must watch over the world and Jim."

They finished their breakfast in silent remorse, both knowing that the joyful days were over. Ten blissful years they had lived together now, and it would all be over in a blink of an eye.

Angus was leaving that very evening. Both Xyzta and Angus understood too well the graveness of the situation to try to delay the departure, even though they wanted to.

Angus was now standing on the oak floor in his old imaginary Mêlée Island mansion guestroom. Jim was happily jumping up and down in the big bed, while Xyzta, moved to tears, stood in front of Angus. She tried to calm herself down by telling him information about arrangements she had made for him.

"When you leave the portal you will find a talking monkey who answers on the name Bobo," she said in a blurry voice which was close to cracking due to her sorrow.

"Bobo?" Angus asked, in a merry, slightly amused tone. "A monkey named Bobo!" He said this in an expressed and joyful tone, which he used for the sole reason of trying to cheer her up.

At first, she fought against the bizarre voice that Angus had just used; she did not want to seem glad of him leaving, but in the end, she could not hold herself and laughed a low, chuckling laughter while giving Angus a wide smile.

"Yes," she said, with laughter behind every syllable. "A cute little Caribbean monkey named Bobo."

Angus could not handle his feelings either. "I wish Bobo could go on this adventure instead of me." This made Xyzta chuckle even louder, misinterpreting the comment. Angus, however, continued more sadly than ever. "He won't miss you two as much as I will."

Angus stared blank eyed at his loved ones.

He called Jim to him.

"I will be leaving now," he said.

"How long will you be gone?" the young boy asked, the new situation seemed strange to him, but he couldn't grasp how.

"Oh, I guess I will be gone some time," Angus answered kindly. "It will take a very long time before I will be back."

"Oh…" Jim replied a bit sad, he had hoped that he and his father could play a game later on.

"Remember to listen to your mother when I'm gone now," Angus said and gently stroked his son's dark brown hair. He then, after realizing how much he would miss his little son, let go of his Scottish manner and pride, and bowed down and gave his son a great hug.

Angus slowly let go of Jim, who in turn sprang out of the door after a short and ignorant "Good bye." He was too young and lived in a world too separated from the true world to realise what was happening.

Angus looked a while at the empty door and slowly understood that he would not see his son again for months. The thought only made him miserable, so he turned and hoped to find comfort in Xyzta's deep eyes. But what met Angus when he turned wasn't comfort, nor joy. He stared at Xyzta's pained face, with deep sorrow. Her forehead was wrinkled with numerous thin, long lines of concern. Her eyes were glassy and swollen. Her cheeks gleamed brightly red and her mouth quivered lightly. She was near a breakdown, and Angus knew he could not do anything to help her feel better. He bent over towards her and kissed her gently but passionately. Then as he retreated his head from hers, he let his right hand drift slowly through her soft silky hair, he let his hand follow the left side of her hand, and as he tenderly hold her right, slightly swollen, cheek, a tear from her endless deep eye ran into his palm. He slowly lowered his hand, holding a single tear filled with promise of longing.

He had to go; they both knew that.

Xyzta, wiped away her tears and started to concentrate upon the task at hand; to send Angus back to the cloud island.

She took one last look at Angus and then sent him away. That last look was going to haunt her the coming months.

It was the face of her dearest, stiff as a log, with a slightly sad face, and two thin lines of salt water, flowing slowly over his checks, which now seemed to change colour.

When Angus woke up, he was in complete darkness; he could feel that his cheeks and eyes were wet. He had a hard lump in his throat, and there seemed to be a small biting sensation in his nasal cavity.

He lay down again and hoped to sleep it all off. He felt the warmth from other bodies, and was ready to sleep into the creation-world again.

He did not get the chance though; seconds later he heard a loud scream and an irritating voice cried out Angus' name.

Angus tried to ignore it, but to no use. Soon someone had opened the lid of the altar, and a small monkey was sticking its head into the altar.

The monkey had a small brown face, with a white pattern of fur going across his nose.

"That can't be…" he said, amazed, with his irritating monkey voice. "You're floating in mid-air."

Angus' feelings had now turned from sorrow to a slight irritation; he was angered over the fact that he could not even have his emotions for himself.

"You're Bobo, right?" Angus said, uninterested, in an attempt to reduce the monkey's vocabulary to single words.

"Yes," Bobo said, glad for the fact that someone knew his name. "Bobo is my name, and I'm a talking monkey. There ain…"

"Gee, a talking monkey, huh?" Angus said mockingly, already tired of this talkative animal. "I would never have guessed."

Angus suddenly understood that Xyzta was probably watching him, and he calmed down.

He laid there silent a moment while the monkey stayed at a distance, not wanting to be near the mood sick human.

"I'm sorry," Angus finally said, perfectly calm, while his depression started to come back again with the thought of Xyzta. "That was out of line."

"Oh, that is perfectly all right." Bobo said cheerfully, happy for the fact that the human seemed happier now. "I can completely underst…"

"How did you manage to open that lid?" Angus asked, before the monkey managed to finish talking.

"Well, with this!" Bobo now showed a chopped off tail end, which was bleeding vigorously.

Angus instantly froze with discomfort, and Bobo noted his concern.

"Oh, don't worry Mr.McDow," he said calmly. "Look, it is growing and healing as we speak." Angus could see that it was so. "Xyzta is wery kind towards us servants." Angus nodded carefully, not understanding how making a monkey chop his tail off would be kind. "But now we must go, the day would soon decline," Bobo said, and jumped away from the altar.

Angus arose slowly, and the temple-like clearing that he had remembered from six months ago had now the privilege to bath in the midday-sun's rays. Angus got up and strode out of the altar, and as the lid closed itself, and he followed Bobo who strode comfortable a couple of feet ahead of him, he understood quickly that Bobo's tail couldn't hurt, since he constantly slammed into nearby trees and bushes with great confidence and joy. Angus then understood the necessity of the tail chopping and understood that it was not as horrible as he had first thought.

Angus and Bobo walked all that day and reached the shore at evening.

Xyzta seemed to have everything prepared for his trip. Just outside the island's reef, a sturdy new sloop was rolling gently on top of the dull waves. Angus could only see a single rowboat along the beach, and in that, there sat four monster-monkeys. They were nearly human-sized and had black hair all over their bodies. Bobo strode towards the boat and positioned himself at the stern with the tiller. Angus had to sit down in the bow; he was just a passenger after all. 

After ten minutes of intensive rowing from the brutish monkeys, they had reached their destination, and Angus boarded the StarSailer, a beautiful sloop, manned with even more brutish monkeys. Angus was shocked; the animals were in fact so ugly that he could not bear staying on deck.

He demonstrated that he was tired and Bobo quickly showed him to his quarters.

Angus got the captain's quarters; since he was a distinguished guest, this was the only fitting solution. On the other hand, during the entire trip Angus never saw anyone, neither human nor animal, that could even resemble a Captain. The Captain's quarter was not something to brag of though; a small table accompanied by a fragile chair, and an even more fragile-looking bed was all the furniture he could findnd in the small cabin.

This trip will surely be dull, Angus thought as he undressed. Moments later, when Bobo came in and collected Angus' clothes for washing, Angus was snoring heavily in the poor bed.

The next morning, a rapid tapping on the cabin door awoke Angus. He asked about the reason for the dreadful noises while getting out of his bed. When his feet had reached the deck, Angus noted that all his clothes where gone. He was horrified, and even more so when the door opened and Bobo came striding in, smiling. Bobo was holding a bundle of clothes over his left paw and gave them to Angus with the utmost respect. He even wanted to help Angus with putting on the clothes, something that seemed to make Angus angered.

"The breakfast is already ready," Bobo announced as he carefully observed the way Angus put on his clothes.

"Just bring it in here," Angus said, then added, "Now please." He disliked those monkey-eyes staring at him while he was getting dressed. It was as if Bobo disapproved of Angus' style of dressing. The situation was too bizarre for Angus to handle.

Moments later, when Angus was finished, the breakfast came in on the small table. Bobo stood beside the table and talked to Angus while he ate.

"We've been lucky; we haven't encountered a single ship," he started, as Angus hungrily ate a pineapple.

The breakfast continued slowly while Bobo was talking about their trip. At the end, however, he finally said something useful to Angus. "Well, since it could get kind of suspicious if a bunch of monkeys entered the Mêlée harbour, we are planning to give you a rowboat so that you can row to the harbour yourself."

"Why Mêlée?" Angus asked; the answer did not really interest him, he only wanted to rebel a little against this trip where he had been unable to do anything other than sleep.

"Well," Bobo started. "Mêlée was the closest island, and venturing further into the triisland area would be reckless of us."

Angus' question now seemed foolish in its thoughtlessness, and he was tired of the game and Bobo.

"So when do I leave?" Angus asked.

"Oh, as soon as you have finished your breakfast here." Bobo answered him, as politely as ever.

Angus consumed his breakfast in seconds and his supplies were ready in his rowboat when he entered the deck.

Minutes later, he rowed away from the sloop filled with monkeys; he was heading for Mêlée to find out what had happened to his former rebel friends.

Later, when Angus could only see the white sails of the StarSailer when his rowboat was on top of the waves, he remembered something:

He would never get back to Xyzta and Jim without the recipe and the map, and he did not have either of them. Angus suddenly understood that the only way he could ever get back to his family was through finding these items, whether they where amongst his former "friends" or in the hands of the VoodooLady.


	3. The New Mêlée

Chapter 3: The New Mêlée.

The sun was just below the horizon and the skyline slowly grew lighter and bluer while Angus laid in his little rowboat; he was sleeping heavily. His night-long row through miles of hazardous water had taxed his strength and it was with a last effort that he had tied the boat to a dock-post. He had fallen into a deep sleep.

_Angus once again saw the grand entrance-pillars of the cloud-island. They snarled at him with a menacing red glare coming from the dawning sun. But where was the small cloud that would take his ship to the land of dreams, and his little family? _

_Angus felt that it was hours since he had prepared the recipe and the stinging smell of roots still lingered in his nose. Then he remembered! He had to have corks in his nose to experience the ride. But did that mean that he was dreaming now? Angus thought hard… Even so… He should be there by now shouldn't he? The questions ran through his mind. _

_He couldn't take it anymore. Here he had managed to come back whole, and was trying to get back to his family and the cloud wouldn't take him home… Was this one of the last horrifying acts of the VoodooLady? He called out in the upcoming wind that threatened to close the gate again. "What ill deeds have I done to deserve this?" he shouted, while tears started gleaming from his eyes in the cold wind. "Why can't I enter the land of my family?"_

_The wind increased in strength, and as if in a booming response lightning came down from the gate, striking the ships mast. The noise was terrible, and the ship was near to capsizing, but in the last minute Angus managed to turn it towards the storm and stabilize it. And it was in that moment that Angus noted the burned rifts on the sail. The sail was holed, and the holes formed letters. And in grief and guilt (though he didn't know why he had those feelings) Angus read: "The time of judging has come on the world. And for your sins you are condemned to solitude. The losing of your family is the prize for your selfish honour!" _

_Angus was horrified, and as he read the last line, lightning struck the mast, and the sail and the ship caught fire. _

_The ship turned into a great turmoil, fire everywhere and faint shouting. Angus didn't move however, he was too paralyzed by the message on the sail to do anything. He only stood dumbstruck and watched the scene in front of him. They called after him, but he wouldn't listen. _

_He could sense a small tugging at his jacket, but he still wouldn't listen. He only wanted to die. They could call all they wanted; he wouldn't listen. What was he anyway without his family?_

A hard tugging at Angus' jacket accompanied by a sick, heavy breathing, ripped Angus out of his dreams. He turned around to find the source of the tugging and breathing, and saw straight into a pair of bloodshot brown eyes, looking as madstruck and horrible as the gateways to hell. The eyes belonged to a brutish  face covered with dirty sweat drops. The man in front of Angus smiled a toothless grin and jerked the jacket off Angus' back.

Angus could now see that much of his belongings had been piled upon the dock. He turned again, and the brute smiled wildly at him with a sadistic glee. He reached for one of the oars and tried to smack Angus out of the boat. Angus' inner instincts had however taken control of his body, and he bowed under the swooping stroke of the oar and jerked his right leg into the chest of the attacker. The act surprised the brute, who fell instantly into the water, but it surprised Angus even more when his sleepy mind again took control of his body, he couldn't belive how he could have gained such force in his kick while he was crouched in the bottom of the boat. His thoughts were soon taken away from this musing over body-control however, as the brute now had appeared with his ugly face over the waterline and was swearing wildly. Angus quickly took up his jacket from the bottom of the boat, and gathered a couple of his most needed valuables from the dockside before running along the dock for someone to help him with the thief.

He didn't have to run very far before he met a group of soldiers. They listened carefully to his tale before they followed him to the scene of the crime.

When they appeared at Angus' rowboat, the brute had gotten out of the boat, and had started to load Angus' stuff on a donkey-cart.

"That's him!" Angus cried out, pointing at the brute. "And there are my things!"

The captain of the soldiers froze for a second.

"Oh hullo dockmaster," he said, not just ignoring Angus' comment but also trying to avoid eye contact with the Scotsman.

"What brings you here captain Smith?" the dockmaster asked impatiently; he didn't even look up from his work.

"We met this guy claiming that someone on this fair dock had stolen his goods," Smith said testingly.

"Let's see him then!" the dock master demanded. "I will sort these things out immediately."

Angus was pushed towards the dockmaster.

"Aha! You have already captured the thief!" the dockmaster cried out "Excellent Mr.Smith!"

"No sir," Smith protested with uncertainty. "That's the victim."

"And the dockmaster is the thief!" added Angus firmly, somehow his long solitude from a working society had made him blind to how they worked.

The soldiers froze. One of them started to snigger silently and soon the whole gang was in high pitched laughter.

"As I said Smith," the dockmaster said in a cool, almost menacing voice, which instantly silenced the men, "you did a good work capturing the scallywag. He thought he could get away with the crime by claiming that these where his goods." The dockmaster looked around at the soldiers who instantly swallowed the story, and started despising Angus as it developed. "The truth is that I captured him in his little rowboat just five minutes ago, after he had had a quite night of crime. He got away from my grasp and begged you for help." He now looked with distaste at Angus. "The only new ship came while this fool was looking for you, and who treks around the islands in a rowboat anyway?" The dockmaster laughed lightly, and the soldiers joined in merrily before being abruptly silenced by the dockmaster's last command. "Now take him away Smith!"

Smith looked at Angus with distaste.

"Now come on you little joker!" Smith said sarcastically, while two of his soldiers took each of Angus' arms. Angus looked miserably back, and watched with dismay as the dockmaster rounded up his things. He tried to protest, but the only response he got was harsh grimaces and angry scowls. His hope in his mission faded quickly. Things had surely changed since his last visit to the fortified island.

Angus looked around the dock in search of someone or something that could save him from this injustice, but found nothing. The captain noticed this and laughed at him.

"Looking for more to steal, huh?" he said while giving Angus a mocking grin. "You should have waited a couple of days. The fleet won't be here until Saturday."

"Fleet?" Angus asked.

"Ha! Don't play innocent with me," the captain barked at Angus. "You can save that effort for the governor. As for me? Well, I know just as you know, and just as the Governor has PLANNED, that the Royal Trade Fleet will be appearing again Saturday."

"Royal Trade Fleet?" Angus asked, he hadn't heard of anything like that before.

"Aha!" the captain screamed out in a mixture between madness and joy. "You know perfectly well what I am talking about, and no I won't give you further detail when and how the trade will happen. It was enough that you brigands destroyed the last meeting; we won't let that happen again, it is bad enough cleaning up after your last havoc."

The dock indeed did look like a cleaning project after a battle. All around there were broken barrels, with their contents starting to rot, and caskets and sales huts were broken beyond repair. But alongside all this wreckage and destruction there were new festive banners of red, green and blue, and new huts being built. Someone had even started to pile up rubbish in several small heaps all along the dock. The cleaning job seemed barely started, and was obviously poorly organized.

Angus was in total confusion. How could thieves have rampaged and destroyed fifteen ships, which now barely floated in their wrecked state? And what was this mysterious trade-fleet? Not anything he had ever heard of, that was for sure. It didn't make any sense to Angus. The trade fleet was strange enough, but what really bugged Angus was the thought of a whole fleet being attacked by criminals. Was the fleet so poorly protected and so rich that every criminal on the island, and criminal wannabe, had gathered to pillage the dock? This could be an answer of course, but to Angus' mind it felt wrong. The mess on the dock was more destructive than such, and the goods looked mostly untouched. And then there was the ships themselves; they had been sunk. Most had been damaged by fire, but also some by cannon-shots. Then there must have been other ships or artillery in the battle. The strangest thing, though, was that none of the ships had tried to escape. The few wrecks that still floated drifted around their anchor chains. And no one had even tried to hoist their sails. Perhaps they were surprised? But why would criminals only destroy the ships, and how did they manage to surprise the fleet so that no one managed to escape? The questions roamed in Angus' mind as he came to the end of the dock.

The captain looked back at Angus and his eyes were filled with sadistic glee, and this drove Angus' thoughts away.

"I guess you feel bad now huh?" the captain asked. Angus gave him a despised look without really knowing what he was talking about. "You only were one day away from a real ship to plunder." The captain pointed towards the bay. There in the deeper end of the bay, the "El Salvador" was docked. It was brightly coloured and its sails, which the men were carrying away, were so white that one couldn't believe they had been used before. Angus saw that it ran with a flag which he only could outline the colours of at the moment; red, green and blue. He guessed it was the same flag as the banners on the dock. The ship seemed to be filled with movement and rowboats were constantly travelling back and forth between the ship and the dock, loaded with trade wares, and returning with provisions. Angus didn't know why, but he felt a strong bond towards the ship.

Suddenly a wall of rocks blocked his visage of the clean lines of the boat. He had been forced through the gate of the fortifications of Mêlée. The stone wall instantly reminded Angus of his first visit to the island, but the thoughts about this earlier visit quickly disappeared as he arrived at the other side of the gate.

The next thing that caught his eyes, right after a hideous smell had caught his nose, was a small wreck of a hut in the middle of the dirty cobblestone road. The hut seemed to have been built out of wreckage goods, like planks from barrels and driftwood. The material was held together by rope, old iron spikes, other pieces wood, and frankly anything that could possibly be used or thought to be used to hold the planks together. All this was "fastened" to a framework of even more irregularly shaped wood pieces, with questionable quality. The whole thing was leaning heavily towards one side and was close to falling apart all together. Inside of the hut, Angus thought he could hear a dozen voices shouting, talking and fighting, as if it were a tavern buried underneath, with the hut as its opening. The fortification wall gained a whole new importance and use, as Angus noted that the entire town of Mêlée now was filled with shacks and "houses" just like, or looking worse than this little hut in the middle of the road. Angus was convinced that the entire town would have been blown away if it hadn't been for the walls.

And the smell! It was like half of the town had died and dragged their rotten corpses out in the sun to spread the scent, while the other half of the town had been used as a lavatory. It surely didn't look worse either. This was the worst case of poverty Angus had ever seen.

The town had turned into a stinking slum! It seemed that everyone on the island had left their houses around the island and settled in the town. Angus speculations were strengthened when the captain mentioned that "Even the badgers won't cut wood anymore." Lumber had been Mêlée Island's prime export, and adding the incomes the colony got as a gateway and trading post from the triisland area to the rest of the Caribbean, it had thrived, and was once the "wealthiest colony north of Havana." Now however, little could be seen of the former wealth. The colony was poor and struggling under the rule of a puppet of the mysterious trade corporation, and the town itself had turned into a filthy slum. People had built small huts and shacks along the road, but after a while the building obviously had gotten out of hand. Now there were huts and shacks everywhere without any order at all; you could even find them blocking doorways and reeking in the middle of the street. The town was filled with dirt and decay, the houses were falling together (both the old stone-houses and the newer huts), and the inhabitants were poor and ragged. The stench of muck loomed in the town as thick as the smell of sweat had loomed in Angus' quarters on his sail to the New World onboard the Lucky Price galleon. His face winced as some particularly smelly kids came sprinting down the road rolling a barrel containing a smaller and quite unlucky boy. Angus couldn't believe how Mêlée could have changed so much in only six months. He asked the captain about this, but the captain just continued to accuse Angus of being a criminal and claiming that Angus now saw the fruits of his labour in this poverty.

The sun rose above the western wall and marked the beginning of a new day for the inhabitants of the town. The smell of ruined and dying lives was greatly intensified by heat-bringing sun. Angus thought he now understood what hell must smell like, and he wondered, as the town woke up, how the inhabitants of the town could endure it.

It was about five minutes later, when the locals came out of their houses, that Angus understood the fullness of the decline of Mêlée. All around him flocked people clothed in rags, and with their ribs protruding like seals from their bodies.  Among them Angus saw a skeleton-thin woman, holding a young likewise thin boy. Angus' thoughts instantly went towards Xyzta and Jim. Was this their future if he didn't return in time? Would that be their fate if he didn't succeed in his quest? The woman was dressed in a rag of a dress filled with holes, and the boy barely had a cloth on his body. Angus had seen poor people before, but never like this. Here was a complete town filled with starving, half-dead humans, massing around the town and going, as Angus understood from the joking remarks from his keepers, to work on the new mansion some two miles outside the town. Apparently the new governor, the only one who had any money, couldn't stand the foul stench of the town any longer, so he had hired the whole town to build him a new mansion far away from the town and the smell, and for that the workers would gain a minimum of food, on which they could barely survive.

Angus was horrified. Could Marley have done this to his people? No! Definitely not, he might be a fool when dealing with Lindy, but he could never arrange this disaster to continue if he were still governor on the island. The woman and the small boy walked past the captain, and the captain laughed mockingly at them.

"There you see," he said to Angus, "there is your fruit of labour. That is what happens when you criminals destroy our trade-possibilities. People think that crime is okay, and whores and pickpockets like these two come sticking their ugly faces around." He frowned and spat towards the little family.

This, Angus thought, would surely be the future for Jim and Xyzta if the quest failed. And he hardened his heart and resolve. He would attain and destroy any information about the whereabouts of island in the clouds, and he would pursue this goal to his death if it was needed.

They had now come to the end of the town, and Angus felt his hopes rise as the air slowly got clearer and cleaner.

He had just been led through the gate of the town, when Angus heard alarming cries coming from over his head.

Angus looked up with shock, just in time to see three shadows flying down at him and the soldiers. The cries turned into war-shouts. And soon the intruders, armed with daggers in hand, and hidden in dark cloaks, had killed off the captain and his men and taken hold of Angus.

The leader took out a piece of paper and fastened it to the captain's forehead with a small knife. Angus got a chance to read what was written on it before he was dragged away from the horrid scene. Upon the paper which quickly drenched itself in dark blood there stood: "Captain John Baker, a gambler and a drinker. Once he was quite helpful to us, but lately his lip has been too busy, and his gold impure. Let that be a warning to the rest of you! Either you pay us and keep quiet, or get off the island. This place is ours, and moving the mansion some miles away won't change that! Neither will another Trade Fleet; if you try anything fishy, we'll sink that fleet too. You have been warned, by the most ferocious and noble Black Defenders, the only association which can save Mêlée from Phatt and Woodman."

Angus looked up with renewed interest at the rebels; it seemed that these men wished to redo whatever had happened to Mêlée and its relations with the mysterious trade fleet. Angus already seemed to be an enemy of the Governor, so why not? Perhaps these Black Defenders could help him in his own quest?

He smiled at them and opened his mouth in an attempt to start a conversation, but the attempt was soon ended by a rag stuffed into his mouth, and by rough hands jerking his own hands behind his back and tying them fast. Then he was quickly frogmarched away from the road and through some bushes. They crouched into the bushes and followed them along the wall.  After a while they came to an enormous Pride of Barbados with spikes searing out of the plant, alongside the red long-stemmed flowers, like bloodthirsty daggers. Angus got uneasy by the look of it. Then the men forced him inside the Pride of Barbados. Angus panicked but calmed quickly as his face came clean of the plant and he saw a small tunnel before him, then he was dragged through it by new, unknown hands coming from the other side of the wall.

Angus looked around in the small backyard of one of the remaining respectable wooden houses of the town. The place reminded him instantly of the old Mêlée, and Angus felt that this was fitting headquarters for the rebels of the new Mêlée regime. He didn't see any of the riches that Jack Long (the rather research-lacking historian who, quite dubiously, spearheaded the "Fabled Years" documentations) would later talk about (hanging gardens and golden fountains filled with jewels), when he would lament about the Mêlée Rebels, and their importance in the change of powers in the triisland area.

Angus stood silent for a moment, feeling sure that some of his questions now finally would be answered. Then someone came out silently and cautiously out of the house. Angus instantly recognised him as the leader of the gang.  His guards, and anyone else he guessed, were dressed in brown dusty crude cloaks, while the man who had appeared from the door was dressed in a quite impressive dark blue cloak. Angus couldn't guess what fabric it was, but it seemed to shine in hues of light blue and gold when the sun hit it, and turn into a pitching dark where shadows ruled. Angus tried to get up but was held down by his keepers; he was supposed to bow for this man. The man looked down at him for a long while before he surprisingly commanded his men to untie Angus. After they had untied him, the leader spoke to him.

"You must excuse my men, poor traveller." he said in a calm voice while lending Angus an arm so that he could get up from the ground. "They are sceptical towards foreigners, and they obviously don't know who you are."

"But you know?" Angus asked. Where had he heard this voice before? Angus wondered.

"Of course I do!" The man replied in a merry tone, as if anything else would be unlikely.

Angus waited for a further explanation, but didn't get any. Suspicion started to arise within him.

"Then who are you?" he asked, feeling just as tied now as when his limbs had been restricted earlier.

"If my spies on the docks area told the truth about you and the dock master," he started, while looking at some cloaked men sitting in a corner, "I would definitely say a friend."

"Then what should I call this friend of mine then?" Angus asked in an ironic tone. Obviously his captor was quite a playful fellow, and Angus hoped to gain more information by playing along.

"Ah, names!" the man said while laughing a forced laughter. "Such unimportant labels." A small silence followed; Angus thought the whole conversation seemed strangely rehearsed. "You may call me whatever you like Angus."

Angus froze a moment when he heard the stranger mention his name, but he had somehow expected it from the man's earlier lines.

"What about your real name?" Angus finally asked when his curiosity had taken over him again.

"My real name means nothing to me anymore," the man said with what seemed to be faked sadness. Then he silenced a moment to recover before continuing harshly, and with poorly hidden hate in his voice. "At least not until the Trade Fleet, and its influence on Mêlée is dealt with." Another silenced followed, in which the man seemed to calm himself down. "Until then my friend, it might be wisest to not call me anything at all."

"The Trade Fleet?" Angus asked. His earlier thoughts about this seemed now to be ready to be answered.

"You don't know of it?" The man said, puzzled but not surprised. "Well I guess the rumours must have been true then…" He looked around at his men. "But surely this is neither the place nor the time to be talking about such matters."

Angus looked at the cloaked man with interest and doubt. What rumours could be floating around which could possibly be about him?

Angus started to wonder where the discussion was heading; he seemed to just gain more questions, but no answers at all.

"Ah, of course! This might be exactly what we needed!" the leader suddenly cried out, disturbing Angus' thoughts.  "A reunion! Ah, so simple and yet so powerful."

Angus wondered what the man was talking about. A reunion? Between whom? Ben (from his trip through the storm gate)? Or maybe Marley and his gang?

Angus thought about possible reunions and didn't hear anything of what the man said. The man didn't seem to bother about this though, and he just continued to talk to himself for a while.

"Well, I think we could work this out," the leader finally said while looking right over Angus' head. It almost seemed like he had thought silently then finally reached a conclusion and now thought about this out loud. "I guess you want to meet up with your old crewmates." His attention had now returned to Angus, and he was speaking to him more directly and with what seemed to be a calming voice, at least as calming as he could muster. "At least after those rumours. Well, it's quite simple actually, I can send you there even with some gold to live off…" He abruptly stopped, as if another thought had stricken him speechless.

Angus was now greatly confused, but he at least was sure of who would be at the reunion.

Still, what rumours were floating about? And what did this man know of his earlier crewmembers? Angus got more and more nervous.

Suddenly the leader again spoke up, and focused on Angus.

"…And the only thing I want from you, my dear friend, is for you to deliver a small package. Could you do that?"

"What are you talking about?" Angus wanted to know. He didn't like the sound of this. Even if he wanted to, he had a hard time trusting this man who seemed to know everything about Angus while Angus didn't know anything at all about him, and whose gang had brutally dragged Angus to this backyard.

Angus was sceptical and tried to back away, this however must have been pretty obvious to the leader.

"I had hoped we were going to take the quiet and easy route here…" he said finally, in an effort to stop Angus' retreat. He stared long upon Angus' face before continuing, as if he were searching for something. "Ah well, if it works it will work!" He made some small hand movements to his men. "When you awaken you will find a package under your head, in that package you will find all the information you need to know." He waited till his men were right behind Angus. "I only hope, for your sake, that you make the right decisions Angus!"

The next moment Angus felt a sharp thud against the back of his head, and the world turned black instantly before his mind travelled away.

.

The Mêlée Rebels had knocked him down, Angus understood later, and had carried the unconscious Scotsman down to the docks and loaded him onto the El Salvador. There he had been lain on a bed and had slept until the next day. El Salvador had at that moment left Mêlée Island, and left the coming trade-fair of the Trade Fleet.


	4. The Nightmare Begins

_Great cheers were voiced in Angus honour. _

"_Great work!" One of the cloaked men said, while tapping Angus on the shoulder in a friendly way. _

_Angus had successfully accomplished the mission. He had saved and retrieved the mysterious Marquise. And he was looking forward to the celebrations in the evening. _

_He was just about to thank everyone for their compliments when a door smacked up with a crash, and another hooded man came marching down the room towards Angus and the others. _

_He stopped right before Angus, and it sounded as he sneered at him, while he regained his breath. _

"_You fool!" He gasped at Angus "You've cursed us all." _

"_What?" Was the only thing Angus managed to reply in his wonder. _

"_You didn't rescue the Marquise after all" The man said, and while so, they all could hear a menacing laughter from the open door, and its hallway. "You 'rescued'…" _

"_Me!" Said a looming voice from the door opening. Laughter followed. _

_In the doorway a cloaked person, low and wide now ripped of her cloak, and before them stood the VoodooLady. _

"_You have indeed been very helpful Angus" She smiled while she said this. "Without you I wouldn't have been able to take over this place" _

"_What?" Angus gasped, bewildered. _

"_You did a fine job indeed." The VooodooLady slowly came towards them. She stopped right before Angus, and spat in his face. "And now your pathetic rebellion will be over Angus McDow. And SHE will serve me or die." She smiled again, a horrid toothless grin. "Take him away boys" she then said to the nearby cloaked persons, who took hold of Angus and carried him out of the room and into a dark hallway. There suddenly his cloak was ripped of his body, and he could sense the cold gasp of wind going over his body. _

"Angus McDow!" A looming voice said in a strong tone that brought Angus properly out of his dreams.

"What?" he asked sleepily.

"You are under arrest!" The same voice said sharply.

Instantly afterwards hands grasped Angus arms and he was dragged out of his bed, and commanded to get dressed.

He was then pushed out of the room, and down the stairway.

"Hey!" Angus protested "There must have been made a mistake here."

"And why is that Mr. McDow?"

Angus looked up, and into Lindy's eyes, which were filled with what he took as laughter. His face seemed mad though.

"What do you want to do with him Master?" Asked the guard in charge.

"No need for trial for this traitor." Lindy spat the last word at Angus. "He faked a handicap upon himself so that we would sympathise him, and then when we trusted him he poisoned his master. And look. He then took the governors bed, and hoped to get away with it." Angus could now clearly see who the traitor was, and how he had been fooled into the betrayal. "No men, this man is a disgrace to this house. I wouldn't have him hanging around here. Take him to the town, and pole his head after he's dead. That way we'll make an example on what we'll do to people who try to harm the Royal Trade Fleet.

"Yes sir." The leader replied looking at his new leader with an expression of admiration, and a sense that the order was the only right thing to do. He then commanded the others to go on with the orders.

Angus was too shocked to say anything, and was walked quietly along his guards.

He thought heavily, wondering how he could be so blind, so naïve. Wondering why he hadn't been more questioning towards this boy who had only caused him troubles in the past. The boy who ten years ago had ruined the whole rebellion.

It was Xyzta's fault, Angus finally realised. Though he couldn't bear to use the word "fault" himself. She had softened his heart, she had made him forgive, or forget what Lindy and the others had done. But still. Still she had seen them in her glimpse through the clouds.

It was his own fault, Angus said to himself, his own fault for putting his life in her hands. He had acted as a woman, he had listened to her every word, as they were truth and wisdom.

A woman's truths where not a man's.

If he only had acted as a proper man should, if he only had kept his guard, his mind.

His pride was damaged.

And he now wanted revenge.

His mind seethed with hate. Hate towards Lindy, the one single boy who had destroyed all that he had reason to fight for.

They had now entered the outskirts of the town with its many huts, and they were just passing through an especially broken-down house when they heard a great bang.

The next instant the leader of Angus' guards lay wriggling into the sand, with a blood-soaked back. Another bang, and his head was turned into a bloody mass.

The other men took forth their swords, and one of them tried to pick up a gun from their now dead leader's belt. A slow whistling sound followed, before a knife was hanging into the man's neck. He turned around, looking around with panic as he tried to pull the knife out again. His hands where shaking too much for him to do a proper job however; the shaking only made the wound greater. At the end he accidentally cut off his throat as he tried with his last powers to drag the knife out.

There where now only two guards left. And none had yet seen the attacker.

Suddenly a round shape came flying down from the rooftop, with a glistening knife between his teeth and a cutlass in his right hand. He landed right beside one of the guards, and slashed the cutlass at his stomach. The man instantly crouched down, getting his face in contact with another slash from the cutlass. The man was dead. And the last guard was rushing towards the shape, which now could clearly be described as a filthy fat man, with a somewhat mean temper.

The rapier of the guard hit the man in his shoulder; the distance was however too great for a returning slash from the fat man's cutlass. He therefore took the knife from his mouth, and threw it in the face of the guard. Hitting him right between the eyes. He then took his cutlass and chopped his head off.

"That should teach those guards not to mess with me, and my interests." He smiled at Angus, and Angus now saw what he hadn't been able to believe during the fight.

"Rum?" He asked. Greatly wondered over how much the man had changed during these short six months.

He had got even filthier. And there had come something inhuman over his face. His eyes had gleamed with almost animal-like hate during the fight. But now they where expressionless and pale.

"You better come with me now Angus." He said, while looking around.

Suddenly fear had come in his eyes, and he was starting to shake. "More guards might come along."

Rum led Angus through some tight and dark alleys, before they entered a small stinking shack filled with the smell of moulding alcohol.

Rum sat down on a chair, and offered the other to Angus. He then took a sip from a bottle, before passing it to Angus, who also took a sip, though smaller than Rum's.

"Huh!" Rum suddenly said, and looked shocked at Angus, as if he had first seen him right now. "So it was true after all then?" He looked further on Angus.

"But why did I ever waste two good guns at this traitor?" He suddenly cried to the ceiling, his focus was ever twisting. "Are you happy now?" He was shouting in the air. "Will you leave my dreams now, you dreadful woman?" He grounded his teeth towards a bunch of hay on the floor, which had to be his bed. "Will you now let a poor drunkard get some peace you witch?" He continued to mumble inaudibly.

What was wrong with this man? Angus wondered. His memory of Rum was far from this, and even there he drank more than anyone else. This was far from anything that could come out of drinking alone. And what was it with this witch?

"Who is that dreadful woman you talk about?" Angus asked. He got no reply. Then he passed Rum a bottle he was trying to reach as he asked the same question.

"Ah, the witch." He replied, after a few sips. "It is a dreadful woman that has been haunting my dreams for months now. All since The old Saviour came to port." He took a larger drink from the bottle. "She kept talking about you, you know. That you must be saved, and all that. That you were trapped, and that I should get you out of that stinking mansion." He looked down all the while, fiddling with the bottle. "But how could I do that? He hates me, he hates me now when he doesn't have any use for me." He turned towards the bed, and spat towards it. "You hear that you wench? He hates me, and would have killed me if had I entered that place!" he took another sip from the bottle, and looked at Angus again; though his focus seemed to be on the bottle-tip. "I tried to ignore the dreams. And thought that they soon would be over when the witch started cursing me for ignoring her pleas, and that you had been taken away." He looked out in the air, and his face seemed calm. "But then she started to get real mad!" Rum actually looked crazed at that moment. "And last night she drove me around town in her dream, before I ended on a rooftop with my two guns, knifes, and my cutlass. Then she rode my back and screamed in my ear until I couldn't take it anymore, and gave away to her pleas.

The next moment I woke up near four dead soldiers, and you. Then I realised what the witch had done." He now looked at Angus directly and worried. "You should really praise god for the fact that these were not the elite guard, and that they didn't wear any armour."

"You dreamt of my coming?" Angus asked more than a little shocked over Rum's behaviour.

"Dreamt? If nightmares are dreams… Months of nightmares foretold your coming, along with the commandments."

"Commandments?" Angus was almost afraid for another outbreak.

"I was told to tell you what I knew of the companionship of the Grog Villains Beauty."

"Who was that woman who told you this?" Angus started to smell a trap.

"A terrible woman." Rum said, while his eyes starting to show fear. "I thought she was the VoodooLady herself at first, but then she started talking about you as the last hope for the rebellion." Suddenly he jerked his head towards the ceiling and cursed. "She is manipulative as the devil!" He sunk his head and looked Angus directly in the eyes, bowing down so that no one would hear his words "And her manipulation don't go directly at the mind either. It seems more like a slow torture, which destroying both body and soul."

"You can't be any more specific than that?" Angus was starting to get tired of the nonsense that Rum was coming with.

"She talked about those commandments…" Rum started to repeat himself.

"Let's hear those bloody commandments then!" Angus smacked a new bottle in front of Rum. He didn't have any patience for this rambling. There could be guards after him, and he was still going to get Lindy.

"I was to talk about…" Rum started to drift off.

"So let's hear it then!" Angus was getting louder and louder. He could hardly believe how irritating Rum had gotten.

"How do I know you are not a spy from the VoodooLady?" Rum was eying Angus with a suspicious look. "Don't you think I remember how you betrayed us when we met that war galleon?" He was eying Angus constantly, as he emptied a bottle.

Angus started to get a strong temptation of hitting the man in the face.

"No, no, no! I will tell him, I will tell him!" Rum eyes had suddenly filled with fear, and he twisted as if he was punished; he seemed to want to take his vision away from his bed and he started rambling facts. "I went here. Marley left to gain a governor-position on Booty, and he left Rap with Lindy on Mêlée. Later Rap would go to Scabb, leaving Lindy alone on Mêlée, where he got in contact with some Phatt island business-men." Rum seemed to calm himself down. "Later, he had traded the governor-position of Mêlée, for a high position in the Royal Trade Fleet. We had then separated the treasure map among us."

Aha! Angus thought, so Lindy was the fault of Mêlée's downfall? He would surely pay for that as he paid for his treachery.

"What happened to the map?" Angus' reason for his quest.

"I can only speak of myself." Rum answered, while he took another sip, and returned from the bottle with a smile. "I was in the Barnacles Maiden some time ago, and this nice lady came over to me and started offering me drinks. She wasn't that bad to look upon either. So we drowned a couple of that cheap wine they keep there, before she took up a bottle of some kind of bluish liquor. She gave me some, and it went right to my head. Literally.

She then asked tons of questions, but I was luckily too drunk to answer them properly. I remember that she looked a bit sad for that fact. Then as she saw that I noticed her reaction, she perhaps guessed that I was getting a bit better. So she started asking about the treasure and the directions to it. I think it took my entire mind to keep the truth about the treasure from her. The directions I couldn't hold back however. And soon after my map piece was hers." Rum started suddenly to shake, but he still kept talking "The last thing I remember from that encounter was seeing her transform into the VoodooLady as she left the tavern."

"You fool!" Angus got up, filled with anger. "You and your brainless drinking!"

Rum had now come out of his dream-world and seemed shocked to see Angus in such anger.

"What?" Rum asked,. "I did as I was supposed to, didn't I?"

"Who could ever ask you to give away your map piece?" Angus couldn't believe what was happening. "And to the VoodooLady?"

"Well…" Rum thought about it for a moment. "I guess it was Lindy's decision to give her the directions and map…"

Lindy! Angus thought, of course!

Thousands of thoughts flew through Angus mind at that moment. The whole situation became clearer and clearer to his mind. And his hate towards Lindy, and indeed all the other fools intensified.

How could they be so blind? How could those idiots threaten the only hope that still stood?

Such stupid people shouldn't be allowed to live, Angus thought. Such destructive stupidity should be destroyed before it could do any more harm. Though he couldn't possible think of anything that could be worse than what they had done.

It was time that he stood properly up for what he believed, and showed this foul land what he meant to do with those standing in his way, and destroying what he tried to build.

"If you ever knew what you tossed away with that map Rum Rogers…" Angus took Rum's cutlass, and walked quickly towards him.

Rum looked terrified, and kept mumbling for himself. "No, no, no. oh no. Think of family. Think of us."

Angus positioned himself behind Rum, who still was mumbling in fear, though didn't flee.

Angus took the cutlass in both hands and raised it over Rum's head.

From outside he could faintly hear a wolf cry. A long howl, scarily similar to a "no".

Angus lowered his head over Rum's so they got eye-contact.

"So you still have contact with the VoodooLady and her minions I hear?"

Rum shook his head deniable and vigorously. But Angus didn't believe him.

He nodded a single time as in a reply. "Just as I thought."

He raised his hands and cutlass again. He then swiftly drove his hands and the cutlass down towards the wreck of a drunkard that had become of the once proud and merry Rum Rogers.

The tip of the cutlass hit Rum's bellybutton spot on. The movement of the sword wasn't meant to be a bone crushing aim to the heart. Angus had swung the blade in a great curve. So the blade continued, and cut more and more skin. It dug deeper and deeper. Swishing trough the intestines. Easily cutting asunder stomach. Barely avoiding the liver, before rasping the left lunge before it pierced the heart of the Dutchman.

Angus jerked the blade further into Rum, and shook it around inside his body.

Angus was soon filled with the blood from his victim, and his hands were deep into Rum's gut. Angus fell onto his knees, and the body of Rum fell down beside him. The horrid scared eyes still looked at him, as if he asked why he had to die.

Angus ripped the blade from Rums stomach, and smashed it several times over Rum's face. He then kicked the body into the hay.

Angus got up and looked around. Now it was Lindy's turn! And then Marley, and then Rap; if he had given away his map piece.

Angus was mad of anger and despair. He knew what their map-plan would mean for the future of the triisland area, and for Xyzta.

He saw a cloak in the far side of the room. He took it on, jerked the cutlass from Rum's face, took it under the cloak and left.

Angus was careful not to show his face, even on the empty road.

When he finally arrived at the mansion, he presented himself as an appointee for the Marquise. After a few misunderstandings, they took him into the mansion.

They led him to the same room that he, Woodman and Lindy had earlier been in when Woodman had been murdered. Angus found it slightly amusing.

Moments later, Lindy appeared, and the guards left. Lindy was bowing low.

"Ah, an emissary from the Marquise?" He asked with a flattering smile. "I see that he has trusted us in the task we were given."

Angus nodded slowly.

Could Lindy have kept the map from the VoodooLady? Angus wondered.

"And I guess he wonders why I took over the role as leader for the Trade Fleet, and sent McDow to be hanged?" Lindy said this, with what Angus recognised as practised seriousness.

Angus nodded again.

It was unlikely that Lindy still had the map, Angus concluded, and he could surely not ask him about it anyway. The guards would be on him before he would have finished the question.

"It was needed to keep order I am afraid." Lindy said while bowing some kind of pathetic apology. "Angus was needed to be killed to maintain order. The island needed a scapegoat. We don't want this island going into complete revolt; we need to take down the Trade Fleet slowly." Just as slow as your death, Angus thought. "I will keep this role until the last ship with our flag has been disembarked forever. It shouldn't take long."

"Not at all." Angus said low.

Lindy seemed to have heard this however, and suddenly realised that the cloaked man before him was Angus just as the cutlass came swinging out of the cloak.

As Lindy opened his mouth to cry out, either for help or perhaps of fear, the cutlass struck into his left breast. Then instantly after it hit the ribcage, it slipped in-between two ribs, and the blade made a crunching sound as it penetrated the lung. Then it met the heart and cut it in two. The heart struggled a moment or two to maintain its beat, but it was broken forever, and ripped itself apart.

Lindy fell towards the floor, and Angus jerked the blade from his body. Then he bowed down over the fallen boy, and stabbed his eyes out.

"See who is blind now." He said to the corpse, while giving it a slight horrid smile.

Then he cut of the head of the body, and carried it to the closet. He found the wine bottle that had been used to serve Woodman earlier. He jerked the head upon the flask, and put it back in the closet and closed the door.

Angus then smashed his cutlass into Lindy's remaining body, tucked his cloak around himself and left.

He was stopped by no guard, and started to run as fast as he could as soon as he got out sight from the mansion.

When he reached the dock, he could see that Arana seemed to be in trouble too, and was running from someone.

"Jump in!" he called, after reaching the rowboat moments before Angus.

They rowed all they could. Some guards where shooting after them, but none of them hit them.

"Toll" Arana explained.

"But we don't have any wares."

"It was you." Arana explained "They thought that I had killed some guards, and let you hide on the ship."

"I shouldn't have come back then" Angus said, and stopped rowing. He didn't want to be in any debt to the captain.

"Don't worry." Arana said, with a smile in his eyes. "They won't get far if they tried to follow us. I feel that my boys have been very productive."

They came to the ship, and entered it.

A midshipman came to Arana.

"All steering-treads are cut captain."

"Good Mr. Oaks."

Arana now smiled openly to Angus, who gave a faked smiled back.

"Where do you want to go now?" Arana asked as the sails gained wind.

"Booty Island" Angus demanded.

"Booty?" Arana asked "Are you sure that you don't want to go anywhere else first?"

"Why?" Angus wanted to know. "Is there anything wrong?" He was starting to get suspicious.

"Winds Angus." Arana said, while he shook his head and pointed at the clouds. "With these winds it would take us weeks."

Even the weather was against him now, Angus concluded, but Arana seemed to be on his side still.

"Take us to Scabb then." Angus said. He then instantly afterwards left to his cabin to try and remember what Rapp had done, and might have done towards him in the past.


	5. Awakening truth

The clouds loomed darkly over the El Salvador as it docked just outside Woodtick on Scabb.

Inside the ship, in his cabin, with a mind as dark as the weather, sat a brooding Angus. He had spent most of his time in his cabin. Captain Arana had tried to keep him company and invite him to accompany him at dinners the first days, but he eventually gave up due to Angus' horrible mood.

A horrible anger, more intense than anything he had experienced before had raged in him day and night. Every hour from they had left the Phatt island dock, Angus had gone over his experience with the rebels of the VoodooLady, thinking of the old rebellion, and looking at its members with new eyes. Rum and Lindy were clear enough for him now, they were already dead and had clearly betrayed him and worked against him. Now Rapp and Marley's deceit came clearer and clearer to him also, and he knew that he could not forgive any of them for the faults they had done.

His thoughts had raged around the subject for days, becoming more speculating and horrifying for every hour. He had focused entirely on his next victim now, only focusing on the chef and his abandoning of him. At the end, his theories about Rap's evils could easily combat his nightmarish dreams from the dreamland. And it brewed ever darker, ever more hateful. His hate towards him had become as desperate as his fear of failure for the mission.

The clouds spread a bit. Just enough for the sun to get a quick glance at the island below, before it once again hid itself in the dense clouds, as if expecting the troubles ahead.

Angus got up, and walked out of his cabin in a cold wind telling its tale about coming storms.

The working crew glanced uneasily at each other and tried to get out of Angus' way, there was a presence over him too dark for them to try anything on him today. This was even more apparent when Bill Coaty, a young shipmate at the tender age of sixteen, managed to drop a coil of rope before Angus' feet. Angus' hollow eyes fixed themselves at the rope and the young man picking it up insecurely and scrambling to safety behind the mast, they seemed to brew hate. He stood silent for a moment as if to breathe in the incident, before he seemed to sink into himself while he marched towards the captain.

Moments later a rowboat left the El Salvador. Its occupants were grimly rowing it to Woodtick, everyone seemed to avoid any sight of the man standing on the prow looking at the town of the ghost ships.

It took another half an hour before the door to the kitchen of The Happy Sausage was kicked in. The chef, quite surprised by the racket, managed to drop his whole jar of cinnamon sticks into his cooking pot.

"Rats!" He exclaimed as he futilely tried to recover some of the sticks. "You don't know how much that costs…"

The chef changed his angered face into a mask of shock and bewilderment as he had turned and noticed Angus, brooding in the doorway.

"What, why… How?" Rapp Scallion was trembling nervously over his pots, and had trouble getting the words out. Somehow the more he focused on the intruder, the more difficulties did he get.

Angus gave the chef a devilish smile as a reply to the incomplete questions.

"What are you making my dear Rapp?" Angus then asked deviously, as he walked nonchalantly towards him, knocking down spices and ingredients along the way.

Rapp was too shocked to answer. His eyes were wide open and he stood dead still, as if the devil himself had come to visit him.

Angus had come right next to him now. He looked over his shoulder.

"Ah!" He sighed with faked pleasantry. "Our old favourite dish The Monkey Irresistible isn't it? And whom might it be for this time?"

Rapp only swallowed and looked shocked at Angus.

Angus waited patiently, but when he understood that Rapp was still too shocked to answer, he changed to a more personal tune.

"Now come on then!" Angus started slapping him on the face with the flat side of his cutlass. "And while you're at it, be as nice and to tell me where that map-piece of yours might be."

Rapp swallowed again. "Well…"

"Come on then!" Angus began to slap him harder, trying to force him to talk.

"I lost the map." Rapp tensed, and then when nothing happened he quickly added "So I have been sending her sausages filled with 'irresistible' every Friday."

"Lost the map?" Angus asked teasingly, playing with his sword against the concerned chef.

"Perhaps Lindy got it?" Rapp looked upon Angus with a desperate scared face.

"Why do you say that? To make me go after him instead?" Angus now knew what kind of man Rapp was, the question was unnecessary.

"Angus you know me…" Rapp pleaded. "I would never lie to you."

Angus went behind him and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Take it easy. Let's talk about other things than such for the moment." He steadied his cutlass in his other hand. "For example; why you even bother making these sausages you talk about."

"Well…" Rapp didn't like the direction the conversation had taken. In general he didn't like the conversation at all.

"The thing is Rapp…" Angus said, not caring whether Rapp would have gone further in his explanation or not. "You stole the recipe from her right? Took it from her table. From the VoodooLady! Wouldn't the thought of copies occur to you? Perhaps she even planted a copy on the table for you to have?"

Rapp backed away when hearing this. The truth in this hit him like a fist in his face.

"The thought of her GIVING it to you also flashed to my mind you know. It was soon disregarded of course. An honour-full man as yourself would never, of course, sink to the level of spying and treason." Angus patted Rapp on the shoulder in a friendly manner. He could sense the muscles on the chef tightening. "No. I am glad you are a man of your words. A man to be trusted, Rapp. A man that would at once tell Marley about his faulty speculations about my relationship with that war galleon we encountered…"

Rapp turned his head, worried, to see what Angus meant by this.

This was the moment Angus had waited for. He put his left hand on the chef's head and could feel the guilt of betrayal seeping into his palm. It only fuelled his hate and disgust towards the man in front of him. He tightened his grip on the Rapp's head, and cut a quick stroke with his cutlass over the man's throat, slashing it open. The blood splashed out as he took the entire head with both hands, feeling the pulsating energies of the chef's last life struggles, and wrenched it with a bone breaking crunch towards his own face.

"Traitor." Angus smiled at him. He then let go of him, and Rapp fell towards the now blood-drenched floor.

Angus looked around the kitchen and his eyes fell on Rapp's cookbook. He went over to it and looked in it. Then he looked into the pot and the ingredients that lay out on the table. He picked up a jar with some white substance in it, and tasted it.

"Ha!" He laughed at Rapp's body. "You didn't even have the right ingredients. This is wheat flour not crushed skull." He threw the jar at Rapp.

"But don't worry dear treasonable chef; I will help you fix that problem." Angus stepped on Rapp's head, trying to squash it. He then angered over his lack of result started kicking it with all his might. And at last he heard the crack he was waiting for.

"And now," He bent down to Rapp's broken face, "let's get you into that pot." He then took forth his cutlass again and carefully severed Rapp's head from his body. He wanted a nice cut for the pot.

When he was done, he took up the head and tossed it into the pot. He then smelled on the fumes. He smiled, and was satisfied with the result. The only thing he felt the pot needed now was some fibre. He went towards the cookbook and ripped of the recipe. He was just about to throw the remaining book into the pot, when he noticed a drawing on the backside of a page. It was crude, but he saw immediately what it was supposed to portray; his granduncle and the torture cellar of the McDow Caste. Angus froze. Only focusing on the picture.

Thousands of different thoughts ravaged in his head. Had this any meaning? What had they seen? Did they know everything already? Why did they play this map-game with him? His mind flew back and forth between different thoughts; thoughts fought wars to gain the upper hand to realisation.

A blop in a pot made Angus stop his thinking and come back to reality again. His anger had seemed to fade with the picture, and he tried to collect it again, but it wasn't that successful.

He looked down at Rapp, put on an angry frown and tried to focus on his treason. He then tried to kick the remaining body of the chef, but his mind was filled with doubt, so his foot merely touched Rapp.

Angus had to get out of the kitchen soon after. He couldn't stand being in there anymore. Among his former anger which he now tried to restate, he sensed a strange sickening feeling.

He just had to get away.

Angus sat in his cabin, staring at a closed book in front of him. It was the "cookbook" that he had found in Rapp's cabin, and it now haunted his thoughts. He knew that it had to contain more than mere recipes for sausages. That picture of the McDow cellar had to mean something, but what?

He fixed his eyes on the dog eared cover, and he sensed his curiosity tinker in his fingertips, but his impatient fingers where soon swayed by his stronger, slower, brain of reasoning, which reminded him about the picture and the following sickness that had befallen him in Rapp's kitchen. His curiosity about the unknown battled his fears for what might happen to him if he opened the book. He wondered what Rapp might have written about him, but at the same time, he feared that reading the book would make looking back at his killing even more nauseating.

Angus had spent the night fighting over the cause in his mind.

First, in the early hours of morning, when he was just about to throw the book out of the window, a new thought came to his mind. A suspicion that must have grown in his subconscious since the beginning, but hadn't come forth to his speculating mind before the sun started to shine through the barred windows of the cabin; what if the book contained more information about the VoodooLady, and the map pieces? The cookbook could be a traitor's diary giving away valuable information about the VoodooLady's plans and actions.

He would surely be foolish to throw away a book that might contain critical information about his main enemy. And it would also be foolish not to read this information, so that he might anticipate any traps or treasons towards him when he now was near to fulfilling his mission.

He looked doubtfully at the leather cover of the book, sighted and decidedly opened it.

Angus quickly skipped through Rapp's childhood experiences and his boyhood dreams of the sea at the Plymouth docks. The book was written in an autobiographical method that didn't fall to his taste, so he also quickly went through his dramatic climb in the naval life. Only after his arrival in the Caribbean, at his sausage-poisonings did Angus stop and compare the story he had heard onboard the Grog Villains Beauty with the diary in front of him. It was pretty much the same, though the deeds were described even more respectable and heroic this time. Angus started to wonder why that story was supposed to be so heroic in the first place.

It was clear that Rapp had planned this to be his autobiography which finished in happiness when he attained his noble title at Eleuthera right after his mass poisonings. His high hopes seemed to get the better of him however, since he had decided to take his book with him on further travels, in case of further adventures that could make him more famous and respectable.

The later parts of the book continued, with more details than his earlier narrative, though he still kept his bolstering autographical style. The journal took on a whole different tone after he entered the Crooked Island Passage however. Now the true Rapp finally revealed itself in a diary-like style, a man first puzzled, but constantly more nervous about the strange weathers, trying to calm his mind by drinking watered down pumpkin-spirits (the strong stuff he had gotten some months before in Puerto Calabaza); a sad traveller that had thought too highly of himself before venturing on a new trek. Angus didn't know what to feel about him, it was something between pity and disgust.

Now the story started to get interesting, and Angus had all forgotten the reasons for opening the book, and the earlier fight for that decision.

The following entries made Angus travel back to his own meetings with the storm-gate. He actually felt many of the entries on his body. The uneasiness of the engulfing fog. The wonder of the music in the depths. The grand horrid storm gate with human skulls adorning its frame.

The most gripping entry however, had to be the feverish scribblings after his visit with the VoodooLady. An entry which revealed a petrified man, who described the VoodooLady as the devil himself incarnated in a stout black woman. The VoodooLady was such a terrible woman that she "made the whole room tremble with fear, making it hard to see things properly".

Rapp must have been terribly anxious, and was apparently rambling madly whenever the VoodooLady asked him something. The VoodooLady seemed to take delight in his fear, and had so brought out his private case of spirits, and started drinking with him. Through pure luck he was given the watered down bottles, while she drank the concentrated stuff. The concentrated stuff was more than any normal human being could manage, so the VoodooLady fell asleep after two bottles. Rapp then escaped, while stealing some small things he thought he could sell for a nickel or something, later.

Then Rapp's story continued with Marley, and he blamed him for destroying their good will of the VoodooLady (after the Booty incident), though he stated that his testing with the VoodooLady's mind-breaking powder didn't help their cause much in the crises that they already were in.

Angus got especially interested when he neared the ending, and when he saw himself coming into Rapp's story. It seemed like Rapp hadn't trusted Angus at the start, and he had a feeling that Angus just wanted to split up the group through Lindy. The War Galleon incident seemed to have convinced him otherwise however, after that incident he stated that Angus was the only one he would trust with his life in the future. It had therefore been even more heartbreaking for him, he stated, when the other men in the group thought that Angus had betrayed them all. Rapp feared that he had drowned, but hoped he had managed to get away. He feared talking to the others about this, since they had been in such a hateful mood towards Angus.

Understanding came to Angus as he read this, and the sickening feeling seemed to return.

Further on he read about the quest for the treasure, which Rapp seemed to be as expectant over as Angus had been.

Finally he came to the part where they found the clearing with the altar.

The altar had been open, and inside they had seen a nightmare that, claimed Rapp, had torched a horrible memory in his mind forever. They had seen straight into the torture chambers of the McDow castle. Everyone had been horrified.

They later, after catching their breaths and coming over the first shock, talked about what they had seen. They concluded, too quickly for Rapps taste, that the place had to be a trap that an old sorceress used to trick hapless sailors into, so that he could use them with his morbid sadistic experiments.

They had gone back to their camp with sunken hearts. And Rapp had slept uneasily. It was the next morning that the decision about the maps had been made. Lindy had gotten the idea, and Marley and Rum seemed to like it so Rapp also had to agree. Lindy meant that they could trick the VoodooLady into the altar, and in that way the sorcerer would take "care" of her. If a mighty sorcerer couldn't kill her then their rebellion would be fruitless anyway.

They decided that they should divide the map among themselves, and guard it seemingly with their lives. This way the VoodooLady would believe that the map pieces were more important and worthy than they really were. And so they divided the maps, and surprisingly short after, found some inhabitants on the island that would help them sail back to the triisland area.

The rest of the diary was about their return and their separation after they had gotten to Mêlée. The only thing of significance there was a continuing self loathing from Rapp for leaving Angus in the torture-cellar, and an oath that he would return and see if anything could be done when he had fulfilled his role for the rebels.

Angus closed the book with a dash.

He looked at the back cover with big eyes. He now saw everything clearly. It was as if he had been sleeping for ages, and someone had finally awoken him. He saw the nightmare that lay behind him. A nightmare ten thousand times worse than those he had experienced in the creation-world combined. This time everything that had happened to him was true; every single bit. In the reddish blur of his hateful past, he now saw the horrid acts that he had done. And the sickness that he had felt in Rapp's kitchen grew and grew.

He had been fooled by his suspicions, and he had killed his victims with not even a trace of honour; the essence of being a worthy man in this world. Without his honour, a man is nothing!

How could he have changed so much from the things that he once believed in? Angus envisioned his granduncle in his mind, and he wondered why he had defied his teachings so. His uncle had taught him about honour; that was sure. And not only the common honour thought in every family, but the rare truthful honour that had made the McDow one of the most respected clans in Scotland; the honour that had made them respected among both highlanders and the lowlanders. An honour based upon respect of others, and acts based on higher reason.

Had the McDow honour died with his granduncle? Sadly enough, Angus saw that it had done so. His position as the last surviving McDow had filled him with untargeted hate instead of resolve, and he had left; no, fled the castle in despair.

He had wanted to make money to get rich and make the McDow name of pride again. He had gone to the New World in hopes of making quick money and career as a stinking privateer, or even pirate if everything else failed. He had stolen the livelihood of a poor merchant along the way. He had succeeded by robbing others. And this had been what he wanted! He had ruined the McDow reputation, and ruined the lives of many an honourable man in his "adventures".

He had wanted to make money to get rich and make the McDow name of pride again. But he had forgotten what being a McDow really meant.

His goals for the McDow clan had made him blind to his degrading methods to reach those goals, and this had continued when he had entered the triisland area. Though the goals changed, the methods didn't, perhaps only to the poorer.

After the nightmares of the dream world, things even seemed to have gotten worse. As if his suppressed anger, his hate towards everyone for the decline of the clan, had snapped the last strings of honour keeping him "sane". After that, when he later returned to the triisland area, nothing except Xyzta and Jim mattered anymore. He would do anything to reach his goals, even turning against what he once believed in.

Angus now saw that he had destroyed the rebellion he should have sought to rescue. He had tried to keep his Xyzta and Jim from the VoodooLady's focus, but now he had made a possible confrontation between them all the more real and possible. The Rebels had to be alive if he wanted to avoid any direct conflict between the VoodooLady and Xyzta. But what had Angus done? He had killed off three of the rebels already, all in a cowardly way filled with a mindless rage.

Angus felt sick, though he knew what he had to do from now on, how he could redeem himself. He had to save what was still possible to save. He had to return to the old McDow values and its sense of honour, for the future of the triisland area, for the sake of the continuing McDow clan, and for Xyzta.


	6. Honourable Booty Island

If it all worked out. If he played his cards right when he got to Booty. If he managed to get Marley working on his team, then things could work out well after all. Marley would take care of things on the islands, while Xyzta and Jim would be safe in their cloud. He would of course have to travel between Marley and Xyzta numerous times, but if things went well they might stand a chance against the VoodooLady. A war would be fought, and they would stand victorious or die. And in the victory, peace would finally come back to the triisland area, and he could return to the real world with Xyzta and Jim, if Xyzta wanted to of course. Perhaps they would be awarded a plantation and some land for their deeds? It would be a fine ending to the war. Perhaps they could get another child? And Jim would learn about the world by a tutor. And they would all be happy. They would sit in their garden at noon, listening to the birds chatting and singing in the trees, while watching the new child playing in the garden, perhaps with a runaway chicken? The chicken running away while the child tries to catch it, in and out of sight, around a tree, over the flowerbeds, under the swing, before finally chasing it into the chicken run.

"Angus, Angus!"

The chicken had suddenly transformed into a prepared and cooked one, and the child running after it was now a piece of ham on a platter.

"What?" Angus exclaimed, as he slowly came back from his daydreams. The interruption was annoying him, since this was the first merry thought he had had for weeks now.

"I need to speak to you about something."

Angus had now noticed that the waiter had been sent out, and that it was only himself and Captain Arana still left in the cabin. He took another bite of his apple, and sipped some wine.

"How did your quest go Angus?" Arana asked. The plate before him was still untouched.

"What?" Angus asked after swallowing his bite.

"The Marquise gave you a mission on Mêlée I seem to remember." Arana hinted while looking over Angus, trying to see something or another.

"Oh." Angus had to think a moment before he remembered the mission Arana talked about, so much had happened since that; so many things of greater importance. "It turned out all right I guess." He said finally, a bit taken back. Why was he asking him about this, and why now?

"Are you sure about that?" Arana asked, while intensifying his glare.

Angus looked back at him, what was the meaning with such a question?

"As sure as I can get." Angus replied, he could sense a fight, and didn't want his own anger to trigger it this time.

Arana picked his food with his fork. Wriggling his potatoes around the plate a few times before looking up again, a bit unsure, as if he didn't really want to say what he was about to tell.

"I've heard otherwise." He looked intently at Angus, as if to seek an answer.

"Otherwise?" Angus sensed what was coming.

"I've heard that someone or another had destroyed the whole mission." Angus opened his mouth, as if to reply to the accusation, but Arana continued before he got a chance to voice his thoughts. "I've heard that after an especially successful mission, someone or another came cloaked to the Trade Fleet mansion, and killed off the new leader." Angus' senses had been right, and he was just about to reply; but he didn't get a chance this time either. "And that very someone came with a faked letter of approval from the Marquise, and had left a quite distinguishable and highly recognisable feature on his victim." Arana looked intently at Angus, as if he was waiting for something.

Angus only looked back He had felt mildly insulted for not being able to be tell anything before, and he surely didn't want to be some kind of obedient dog for this man.

"Well?" Arana was getting impatient.

"I don't have to answer to you." Angus replied, surly.

"It might be wise…" Angus gave Arana a despising look. "Especially when the Marquise is looking for you." Arana let that information sink in for a moment. "He is his furious over your actions Angus. He has agents everywhere looking for you. I even had to stop some from entering the ship while we were docked on Scabb."

"But he tried to kill me!" Angus said, not understanding how he could be seen as the guilty one.

"Who? The Marquise?" Arana asked in confusion.

"No Lindy." Angus said, a bit surprised that Arana didn't seem to know his story. "He blamed me for the killing the old leader and he sent me with his guards to get me hanged."

"Are you sure about this?" Arana asked. "What if it was only a show, put on to give the inhabitants of Phatt a scapegoat?"

"A scapegoat indeed." Angus said, churning despise into the air along the words. "And he would surely have turned it into a show." He looked at Arana, who still looked puzzled "I'm telling you, he would have killed me. It would have been his greatest pleasure to see me hanged."

"What makes you think that?" Arana still didn't seem convinced.

"Let me put it this way: Lindy and I have known each other for quite some time." Angus said "And it hasn't been a pleasurable friendship. From the start he despised me. Just because I was a bit harsh with him, you wouldn't even call it harsh on a regular boat." Arana looked at Angus, as if he expected a long story. "Well, to make a long story short; he got the crew to go against me, and would have gotten them to kill me if he had gotten the chance."

"You mean this boy could get a whole crew to go against you?" Arana was still unconvinced.

"Let's say he had a firm grip on the captain."

"A snitch in other words?" Arana seemed to know of the type. "A traitor of his crewmates?"

"No, he was an adoptive son of the captain, and the captain hadn't raised him properly, and was treating him like some kind of child-king."

Arana nodded his head, and mused over Angus' words for some time.

"It still won't stop the Marquise's men though." Arana finally said. "But perhaps I can send him a letter, where I explain your side of the story?"

"If that pleases your mind, you can surely do that." Angus said. His thoughts had again started to turn towards his hopes and plans for the future. "You won't have to worry about me much longer anyway. I will be out of your and the Marquise way when we get to Booty."

"Oh, you are leaving?" Arana asked

"Sort of."

"But the storm-barrier…"

"Somewhere else, my friend"

"Right." Arana brushed his chin a couple of times, before rising up at the ringing of the ships bell. "Well it won't be long then, Booty is already in the horizon."

Angus also got up from his chair, lightening up for the first time since his dream. "It is?"

"Yes, and I will write that letter and send it with some trusted people as soon as we dock." Arana seemed concerned.

"Don't worry about me captain," Angus said, but he saw that this wasn't enough to take away the concern of Arana, "though I appreciate the thought." He added a foolish blink with the eye, as if he approved the gesture, even though he didn't care one way or another about the Marquise's thoughts about him.

The next moment a crewmember came and said that they wanted the Captain on deck. Arana left with a nod to Angus who also left soon after, heading towards his cabin.

When Angus got into his cabin, he quickly began to pack his belongings into his ships chest. He was close to the end of his quests, and he wanted to be done with it and sail home to Xyzta as soon as possible, hopefully with a new rebellion brewing from Booty.

His packing was going well, when he heard some tapping on his door.

Angus turned as he heard the door creak open, and he saw Arana standing in the doorway.

"Yes." Angus replied, as he tossed Rapp's book into the trunk.

"I must say it has been a pleasure doing this trip with you Angus." Arana smiled, and shook Angus' hand.

"Yea, it is unfortunate that it has to end so soon." Angus replied politely.

"That is true." Arana scratched his chin, as if thinking about something for a moment. He finally gave up the task however. "I heard that things are happening on Booty that might prolong our further travels. And the crew also needs a good shore break. So if you want to join us again when we are able to get out of port, you are more than welcome to."

"I thank you for the kindness you have shown me Captain. And if I were to travel again on the triisland seas, your ship would be on the top of my wish list."

"Such wishes please me."

They shook each others hands again.

"The first rowboat is getting ready to head for port now," Arana said after hearing some louder yells from the deck. "I reckon you would be on it."

"Yes, that would be nice." Angus threw his last things into his chest and closed it.

"I bid you farewell then McDow." Arana said politely.

"Thanks, and I wish you luck on your further trade-lines Mr.Arana."

They shook hands a third time and Arana cried out for someone to take Mr. McDow's luggage.

When he arrived at the docks, Angus fully realised what he had seen on the ship, and what Arana had hinted as a problem for his further travelling. The dock was crammed with people. And small boats where coming and going like ants, carrying all sorts of wares from trade-ships further out in the harbour. It was all rather disorienting, with all the people going to and fro, in the end he was led towards an inner circle of officers handling all the wares and people coming. And in the middle of all the officers he could hear a familiar voice bellowing orders; urging the most expensive spices and the fine clothes by all means not to be dropped on the ground were several baskets of good aubergines had fallen over and already made some havoc. Angus pressed himself forwards. And after a few threatening glares from a few of the officers, and their guards, and a couple of evasion manoeuvres he arrived in front of a well known face.

"Angus!" The face exclaimed, with surprise evident in every fold and wrinkle of his sweaty face.

"Governor Marley!" Angus replied, while eyeing the shocked face. What secrets did this man hide? Angus quickly tried to drive the thoughts away.

"I, I thought you were dead." Marley said, while his eyes were open and filled with astonishment, though a smile was clearly growing on his face.

"The rumours of my death have been…" Angus stopped in mid sentence. He had felt something strange about that line from the start on. As if it someone tried to force it on him or something. He quickly said something else. "You were wrong, my dear governor, you were wrong."

Marley didn't exactly know what to do. He tried to resume his orders, but only rambled. Finally, after a few grave misunderstandings and wares going where they should not, he found out that it was of no use. He gave the task to someone else, and stepped out of the crowd, hinting that Angus too should follow.

He quickly walked away from the crowd and started searching for a wagon. He found no driver though. Finally, he stopped looking when he arrived at a low black one, with a strong looking brown stallion.

"Better drive the darn thing myself then." He jumped on the seat, and grabbed the reins. "Come on Angus."

Angus followed up, and Marley started the wagon as he sat down.

"I thought…" Marley started right after, but stopped himself, and looked suspiciously around. "I thought you would visit some time later my friend." He said it in an obvious acted calmed voice and gave a forced smile to Angus. He also did something strange with his eye, which for some reason or another gave Angus the feeling that he should play along.

"Oh, why is this a bad time to visit my close friend?" Angus asked in wonder. His play wasn't completely acted.

"Well, you could surely have picked a week less hectic." Marley then forced a laughter, which seemed to calm him down a bit. "We're arranging a festival this weekend."

"I'm sorry for the disturbing your festival then." Angus said, with a sarcasm that had no hint of acting in it.

"Ah, not to worry." Marley said, calmer now than he had been since Angus met him on the dock "You're appearance just took me by surprise that's all. Last time I saw you, you were having great difficulties in that company you entered. You got out of those nasty businesses by yourself?" He looked at Angus, with wonder and doubt seemingly tearing into his eyes. Angus however only looked puzzled back, he couldn't understand what Marley meant by companies and getting out, he didn't know at all what he was talking about.

Marley noted this, and only sighed in return, and scratched his head. It was easy to see that he was somewhat pained by the coming of Angus.

They sat there silent for a moment. Angus was unsure about how he should talk to Marley, with all this acting going on, and Marley seemed to be in deep thoughts.

Then suddenly a fear went over Marley's face and he looked shocked at Angus. Then he seemed to remember his act in the last moment. Because he calmed, started looking forward again, and with a faked irritation said: "It sure don't disturbs me that you come here at this moment. But it would be preferable if you made your trip to Scabb, and Phatt first" he had pronounced both Scabb and Phatt louder than the rest of the sentence. "Your contacts there have been waiting for you, and I am afraid that they might have acted without wisdom in your absence."

Angus now started to understand what Marley was doing, and it pleased him to hear that Marley portrayed such secrecy, and it also pleased him to see how he also must have recognised the problems with Lindy, Rum, and Rapp.

"I am afraid to say that I have dealt with them." Angus said, playing along, but unable to be completely emotionless in his play. And anyone following their conversation would wonder why such a thing could sadden the newcomer so. "And now I must hear how you have done your business."

"So you've dealt with them?" Marley said in a slight surprise. "That is good." He seemed merry again, but perhaps slightly worried? "I myself have done well, as you might see. The island is prospering. The crops are doing well. And the crime is minimal. I have also been able to keep our business out of the competitions hands."

That sounded promising indeed. If Angus had interpreted that in the right way, that is.

The horse wagon finally arrived at the governor's mansion, where Angus was fitted into a prominent guest room. There he enjoyed the riches alike what he had been bestowed to by Marley on Mêlée a year of ages ago. He also learned that Marley had not given away the last map piece. It was still locked in a wooden closet.

Angus felt safe now, and for the first time in months he felt that he could relax, safe in the knowledge that the last map piece was out of the VoodooLady's reach. He spent the next few weeks calming down from, and trying to forget, his bloody past along the isles. He felt perfectly safe, even from the Marquise, since Marley had a formidable army that he would surely use to protect his guest. So his time on the mansion was almost like a holliday. There he would talk with Marley about the past, and present (he didn't want to address the rebellion just yet, since then he had to tell about Lindy, Rapp and Rum. He even tried to evade the topic all together if they closed in on it). He found great joy in the festival, and was looking brightly at the future. The haunting memory of his earlier dealings with Rum, Lindy, and Rap was, though not forgotten, postponed or dimmed down. He really enjoyed himself; at least the weeks of the festival.

The festival was now over. And Angus, just awakening from a long sleep after a large meal, felt thirsty for air and a walk.

He had heard around, and found out that the El Salvador was still in port, but was due to leave on the dawn of the next day. He therefore decided to go down, and take a final goodbye with Arana.

It was a fine day; a slight breeze was blowing from the west and the streets were nearly empty; just a few women were out sweeping the road in front of their white painted brick houses. Angus went on, and tried to come up with something clever or perhaps memorable to say to Arana and wondered if a parting gift of a few doubloons would be rude or not.

He had just entered the dock, when he heard a horrifying scream, as from a beast, from one of the piers. He rushed forward, but was soon stopped and held back by someone that Angus recognised as crewmembers of the El Salvador.

"What is going on?" Angus demanded to know.

But the men where too frightened to answer.

"Let me go then, so that I might check this out myself."

The men didn't seem to agree on the logic of Angus words however, and tried to hold him harder, but in this they achieved a lousier grip in which Angus, after a few desperate efforts, managed to get free from.

As he stepped onwards he could hear one of the men say "It is because of you he is like this." Angus looked puzzled back at the man, but decided that he would not find any answer to what question he might ask.

Angus soon understood, if not what they where talking about, whom they where talking about. At end of the pier, a frenzied Arana stood and threatened one of his men, who hadn't been lucky enough to get away.

"Search his cabin; rip it all out if it is needed. I need INFORMATION!" His face was blood red, his eyes where bulging and mad like of an animal's, and the whole man was shaking vigorously. Then suddenly something seemed to snap, and he turned to his terrified victim with wonder. "What am I saying? Tear down his cabin? Our ship is like our house, and our house is like our family, at least where I come from. Go and ask someone on land or something. Just don't go near his room, at all!" He pushed the man slowly away, as if he was a child, before another snap came along with another hateful rage. "And if you don't find him, I will personally gut you like a pig, roast you and serve you to the men for dinner!" Then as he let go of the man, and followed him with his eyes as he ran away, he noticed Angus, and he started shaking harder than ever with his head, and Angus thought he saw saliva coming oozing out of his mouth. "You, you!" his rage was unbelievable. It was as if every hateful thought the Captain ever had, and ever would get was directed at Angus, and he had a hard time controlling it enough not to jump at Angus tearing him apart on the spot, and an even a harder time controlling his breath. He was breathing like a heat-struck dog, and frowning like a rabid one. Then he snapped again, his whole body in it, making him look like a beaten piñata, and a huge smile expanded over his face, replacing the horrid mask of hate. "Angus, my dear friend!" He tried to jump up and hug Angus, but Angus was able to get away from the grasp. He couldn't believe what had happened to the man, and was afraid of what he might do. He had surely gone mad somehow.

He snapped and snapped. And it was soon unclear for Angus when Arana might be merry or grim.

"It was you!" He barked at Angus, who in turn, only looked repulsed at him. "Yea, yea. Don't point those deery innocence eyes at me traitor!" Angus couldn't believe what Arana was talking about. The only eyes he must have given him were eyes filled with disgust. "The Marqe, the Marqo, The Marqu…"

"The Marquise?" Angus asked, more to himself than to Arana.

"Silence traitor" Arana spat back. His eyes were shifting as he looked at him, suddenly they seemed somewhat scared, before they twisted back to hate again. "He told me everything!"

Angus didn't know what he could possibly be talking about, and he was beyond shock and beyond pity for the man in front of him. His stare at the captain was therefore the closest thing you could get to an expressionless one.

"I know everything." Arana whispered, after seemingly seeing something in Angus face. "He told me every little thing you could possible imagine." He started to mumble. And rage grew again. Or did it? Without Angus noticing, his face was a great sorrow. And he was practically crying. "We were so close!" he cried at Angus, while pain and fear was deeply scaring his face. And for the first time, Angus could see a normal glint in his eyes. And it occurred to him, that this might be the only time Arana was truly himself. He dared to be more direct at him.

"Close to what?" Angus asked softly, as if to not awaken the madness again.

"To liberation of course." Arana said proudly, and stood up as if his task had been done.

He was once again lost.

"The liberation of souls" Arana continued, before suddenly grouping down and taking his voice into a whisper. "I was the first one to get free from her grasp you know."

Angus got a stinging sensation that he was onto something. And was about to ask something, but was cut short with another bailing from Arana.

"But then some dreaded Scotsman came and killed off the chef." He eyed Angus, but didn't seem to find anything, and he continued. "And he actually HAD the recipe!" He again started to wail. "I could have been free!"

Arana then went over to a great moan; he got down on the ground, and started shaking in his moaning.

Angus, not sure what to do, ended up putting a hand on his shoulder, in hope of comforting the man.

The response however, was not what he expected. Arana shot up and with even a more horrible gaze, and even more hate and anger boiling in his red face; he ground his teeth at him.

"Look at what you have done Angus McDow!" he snarled at Angus. "Look at another soul you have destroyed, and know KNOW that you have been the ruin of us all! That the VoodooLady will forever rule over us because of you" He lowered his back, and looked deeper in Angus' eyes. "You are hated Mr. McDow, hated more than anyone else. And only death awaits you now."

"Your blood will run from your body today, Scotsman" Arana then looked at Angus with a morbid sly smile. "Bwhahahahha!" He shouted, and jumped off the dock while shaking and flapping like a shot bird, ever snapping till he met the water.

He would never be heard of again, in living form that is; he was later a critical element in a popular drinking song about the two runaways Bob and Ben from Barbados, finding their rescue and refugee in a poor dead mans corpse, but that is another tale which is highly unsuitable at this place.

Angus stood alone and quite shaken at the dock, looking over the dockside after anything that could be seen left of the mad Arana. He saw nothing though, and he, after a long wait, left the docks and headed for the mansion. He could do nothing further at the moment. And perhaps Marley could help him find out what had happened to Arana?

Angus didn't get any help from Marley though, not at all.

He was just about to get off the horse wagon, when he noted someone running down the stairs of the mansion. It was Marley, with a bright red face.

"You should exercise more often Governor, if such a small staircase burdens you so." Angus said jokingly, but he instantly understood his error. The governor wasn't red out of the effort of the stairs, but by a great rage.

"You didn't have enough fun insulting Lindy, what?" Marley said with despise.

Angus couldn't believe it; did Marley know of what had happened to Lindy? He sure looked angry enough for it.

"What?" Angus replied, trying to convince Marley that he didn't know anything of what he might be hinting to. His effort was futile however, his reply had come too late, and too shockingly once it did come.

"I guess I'm the last one on your hit-list right?" Marley was still red, but was starting to calm down now, as his anger had focused on something.

So he did know of it. Angus concluded. He knew of it all then. Or did he?

"List of what?" That line was much better. And could have been successful, if it hadn't been for the anger in which it had been spoken. Perhaps Angus started to fear what might come, and started to get ready for it? In any case, his line would not have any success after his former failure.

"I knew you were a maniac and I still wonder what was wrong with me to introduce you into our rebellion in the first place; which you have now so perfectly destroyed. But that you also were a liar Angus? Hah! I guess you weren't even aiming to destroy the VoodooLady's at all." Marley calmed down a bit, enough for the thought to root in his mind. "Of course! I wouldn't truly believe it then, but now I see it. As clear as the sky! All along. How could I be so stupid?" He shouted his thoughts aloud, and when he noticed that he did so, he looked up at Angus even madder than before. "Traitor!" He spat at Angus.

Angus however, only laughed at him. He was tired of it all, and beyond fear and doubt. He might have felt pity for Marley's speculation if he hadn't been so tired of his own speculations that had raged in his mind for years now.

"You are calling me a traitor? You are still not able to see beyond the tip of your nose." Angus noted that Marley started to get angrier, so he decided to keep to business. "It was Lindy, oh high Governor Marley, who betrayed us all! It was him who destroyed us in the first place, and he was the one who betrayed us to the VoodooLady."

"How dare you?" Marley got even more agitated by Angus accusations.

"Are you truly so blind Marley?" Angus shook his head over the Governor. "How, and perhaps more importantly why do you think Lindy got his position in the Trade Fleet?" The question went straight through Marley though, as if he didn't even hear it. "And why do you think that the Trade Fleet got strong right after Lindy got onto the team?" Neither this though seemed to make Marley any more sympathetic to Angus case; it actually seemed to make Marley even angrier. "And why do you think that the VoodooLady has kept a low, if not unseen profile since the Trade Fleet made its rule over the area?"

"I don't like your speculations boy." Marley said lowly, as if to threaten Angus into silence.

"Don't you see? Lindy played against us all the time." Angus didn't get discouraged by Marley's words, but perhaps motivated? "He has wrecked the mind of Rum."

"Alcohol" Marley said, almost as a reflex.

"More to it than that, my old friend" Angus said matter of factly. "And he stole Rapp's map piece."

"Speculations!" Marley was not buying anything Angus said.

"And now, my friend" Angus started, feeling almost hopeless, while his anger over the whole situation of Lindy egged him on, as his consciousness tried to defend itself. "I see the last victim of that manipulative kid."

Marley gave him a look that seemed to dare him to finish his thought.

"You!" Angus said loudly, free from fear, and free from worry about what would happen. He wanted to clean things up now, clear them up for good. "Just look what he has done to you."

"How dare you?" Marley said, getting even redder in the face. He might have anticipated Angus' words, but his deeper self wouldn't make him see the truth in them.

"He was born on the inside of the storm-ring Marley!" Angus said, in a voice that almost seemed apologising. "Can't you see? Inside!"

"How DARE you?" Marley said again, raising himself, as if try and look down at Angus.

"It is the truth, Marley. And I am truly sorry that you can't see it." Angus was now sad. His fearlessness and anger had faded away. He had now at last understood that Marley could never be saved from his feelings for Lindy.

It therefore didn't come as a big surprise for Angus, when Marley "felt humiliated", and wanted a duel to compensate his broken pride.

At that moment a parrot flew out from the mansion, and started circling them. It was the governor's greatest pride, though it didn't seem like it now. It kept shouting "No fight! No Fight!" and whatever Marley and his men would do, they couldn't catch the bird, or chase it away.

The strange incident of the coming bird didn't mean anything to Angus however. He did feel a strange sense of déjà vu, but he ultimately couldn't refuse the duel. To refuse would mean that he had insulted a man and didn't stand for what he had said. He would be a man without honour. So he had to fight. He was a man of honour now, and wasn't Marley just as bad as the other three? He was in any case much more naïve than Rum and Rapp. No, Angus wouldn't lose his honour on this disgrace. He agreed to the duel.

They stood on the town square. A judge had been called to oversee the duel, and they were both holding a firm grip on their rapiers as the battle waned on and their hands became more and more sweaty and slippery.

The fight hadn't gone on too long yet. Marley had struck and slashed wildly, as if he expected Angus to drop dead if he only managed to hit him hard enough. Angus on the other hand, had only deflected the blows and strikes, while eying the opponents fighting style and clearly outlying the great holes in his defence.

He was thinking about the other three, and how horrible it had been for Angus to kill them. How unhonourable it had been. This fight however, was not unhonourable. They where indeed fighting over honour, but yet. As Angus had slashed away Marleys rapier, jumped away from another blow, and struck his own rapier into the chest of his opponent, straight into his heart, with enough force to make the rapier go out through his back, he lost the feeling of justice that had followed him through the whole fight and had climaxed in his attack.

As Angus jammed the rapier through Marley's heart, the sickening feeling from Rapp's kitchen returned, and he couldn't see how this kill was any better than the other three; they where all equally horrible, and useless.

He had shakily pierced the governor's back, and he finally let go of the handle of his rapier, and looked down at the former governor of Booty, when he suddenly realised how wrong his illusions of honour had been. It had only been a tool for his crocked mind. So while his evil calculating mind had voted for pride and honour, his heart had cried and desired reason, and action upon knowledge. Rules can be bent to your wishes, but knowledge can only give you the truth, no matter if you want it or not. Angus realised that he had been wrong in every step of this journey, and that only at the end did he understand how. He had hidden behind his veil of ignorance, clinging to his artificial rules of behaviour, never seeking the truth because he didn't dare face it. There was no true victory by honour, pride or resolve.

As Angus left the duelling area, and entered the horse wagon that was going to take him to the governor's mansion for his possessions, he decided to leave pride, and what people so enthusiastically called honour behind on the town square.

Angus had gathered all his belongings, from the mansion, into the horse wagon, due to the harbour, and was just about to enter it, when another wagon came racing towards him. The wagon stopped, and guards rushed out, followed by a cloaked man, wearing some too familiar clothes. It was the leader of the rebellion of the rule of Mêlée.

"Angus McDow," The cloaked man called. "We need to talk."

It was impossible to escape Angus decided. This man was guarded by musketeers, and he wouldn't get even ten feet before he would lay dead on the ground, with a bullet as the killer.

He walked obediently over to the cloaked man.

"You are the Marquise right?" The doubt about that matter would at least be cleared.

"Not any longer, I am afraid." The man replied, and bade Angus follow him, surprisingly enough into the garden unguarded. "That title was indeed nothing more than a show-off. Though I did hope that we could make it official after we took care of the Trade Fleet."

"So what is your true name then, since I can't call you Marquise?" Angus surely hoped for a proper reply this time. Perhaps he could escape in the garden, but in any case he wanted some answers first.

"I guess it won't hurt that you know now," The man said almost in a laugh. "our secrecy is fading anyway."

He then lifted of his hood, and a rather ugly, dark but as for the moment welcoming face with an oily black ponytail, smiled at him in a glare, as if he assumed that Angus should remember something by the grimace.

"Yea, that's right, you never DID see my face did you?" Angus only looked puzzled at him, so he continued. "My name is Marco Le Grande, the last man except you now who are 'awake'."

"Marco?" Angus asked, wondered about where he had heard that name before, though the truth revealed itself to him soon after. "You where the one who robbed us back at Mêlée!"

"I'm sorry about that," Marco said in a smile, finally getting the response he seemed to have been waiting for. "It was on one of my more questionable days."

"I'll say. You said you double-crossed the VoodooLady because she didn't give you enough money?" Angus said, wondering how much better it would be to have this man controlling the triisland area than Lindy. "And you still think that we, I, am going to fall for that?"

"It's more to it now." Marco said, taking off his cloak altogether; revealing normal clothes beneath. "I did organise the rebellion against the trade fleet, as you you've self seen helped served the VoodooLady's intentions suspiciously well." Angus had to agree to that, though he wondered whether this man had spied on him during his conversation with Marley, or if parts of their conversation were common knowledge due to the duel. Some moving bushes came into the memory of Angus, and he settled for the first speculation, though with more than a little uneasiness. "And you also had the pleasure to meet my friend Arana…" Marco stopped, and a smile was lurking again.

Angus was curious about what had happened to the poor captain. "What about him?"

"He was about to be the trapped mind, transformed to its original free form, from before the VoodooLady's curse."

"I don't believe you." And how could he? Marco had robbed him, or his former friends, and tricked him into the quest that would lead into the killing of all these former friends.

"He was in fact halfway through the transformation when you met him back on Mêlée." Marco said, and eyed Angus as if he was to understand everything about Arana from that information. When he understood that it didn't work though, he continued. "I am telling you, he was halfway there. Rapp Scallion has been mixing potions for us ever since my rebellion started. I got in contact with him, and we tested them all on Arana. What a poor kid. He was originally from Barcelona you know, and was something one might call a half-nobility, with the name of Ricardo Marano. You know the name?" Angus didn't answer; he didn't care for life stories at that moment, at least not from such a crock as Marco. "Well, it was indeed once quite well known, but I see that you don't care about his tragic family story. The VoodooLady however mocked the boy, and gave him a Basque past, destroying everything that he had once treasured in his life. He had become a twisted and tired man when I got hold of him." Something about Angus' face made him stop talking. "Oh well, no story for you then grumpy-face. Rapp told some of my contacts on Scabb that he finally had the recipe for what he thought was the finished potion, the potion that would cure the whole triisland area from the mind curse of the VoodooLady. And thus I wanted to speak with you now, with the tragic death of the chef and all. Perhaps you saw something in his kitchen or his room when you did your own share of the cooking?" Marco gave a smile, as if he was joking about ordinary things when he mentioned Angus' "cooking".

"No" Angus replied surly.

"Perhaps a little book?"

"No!" Angus replied stronger.

Perhaps there was something more important than he had first believed in that book? Angus could surely not believe that Marco could in any way be interested in the liberation of the triisland area.

"I better leave with my wagon now." He said, and started to walk away from Marco.

"You could sit on with me," Marco said, trying to hold Angus back "perhaps you would like Ricardo's story more than you think?"

Angus refused however, and took his wagon down to the docks, where he unloaded his things.

He sat down on his ship chest and looked at the sky turning red. It was the eve of the day, and the end of what seemed like a failed, though finished quest. He bowed his head, and looked at the stones instead. As if he was unworthy of looking at the skies, that somewhere held his loved ones.

Then suddenly he felt something on his head. A small beast?

He looked up, and saw a small sparrow in front of his face, singing to him, and flying forward to the boats and back again. Angus got up and tried to follow the bird, it almost looked like it wanted something.

It ended with the bird leading him to a small rowboat, and perching itself on the prow. Angus didn't know why, but he felt that this was his way back home. He loaded the rowboat with his valuables and rowed out; ignoring the yelling of the angry owner of the boat, while following the small sparrow with steady oar-strokes. The bird had flew up over him, and seemed to give him directions. And after following the bird for only a few strokes, a strong current took hold of the boat, and the bird returned to the prow. Angus took this as a sign and hauled in his oars and lay down.

He had done what he was supposed to, but in all the wrong ways. He had now killed of the last man of the old rebellion, but didn't feel sick anymore, he felt that his killings where behind him now, since he had learned truth from them.

The bird seemed to nod at him, and Angus fell to sleep.


	7. Reunion

If Angus had been more open-minded he might have approached differently. If his thoughts hadn't been swirling around his own sense of guilt and failure he might have noticed the changes.

He might have wondered over the brooding storms engulfing the cloud gate. He might have wondered why the trip through the clouds seemed grimmer, and why a misty grey cloud seemed to hang over the cloud-island. He might even have wondered about why there wasn't a sound to be heard in the jungle of the island, and why the track to the altar of dreams seemed drier then he had remembered it as.

Now, standing before the clearing with the altar to the dream world, faint memories of the changes of his travels came back to him; but they did little to nothing to surprise him now, what feelings of shock and wonder he had now came from the sight ahead: the clearing was dying.

The lush green grass seemed to be dying away, and was turning yellow. The pillar like trees, which once had an almost holy presence over themselves, were now a pitiable sight, their crowns were bare, and bowed depressingly, as if they were carrying a heavy burden to the ground filled with the rotting remains of leaves. Angus shivered. He noticed a film of white, almost transparent, thin roots grasping at the trees, engulfing them and choking them. He also noticed that the same thin roots where zigzagging themselves through the grass towards the altar. At the edge of the circle they covered the whole outer circle, but the roots had difficulties the closer they got to the altar. Still, though, two or three large roots had overtaken the last step and were now creeping into the altar.

Angus felt a horrible suspicion, and quickly went towards the altar, leaving the greener grass of the outer circle.

The lid of the altar was already open and he could see a bright light from inside. Could there still be hope? He wondered.

He didn't want to think much over this, so he calmed himself, and jumped headlong into the altar.

What met Angus next was a painfully bright light, so bright that he was unable to see anything other than a intense whiteness. He got up on his feet, and fumbled around with his hands. He had to find a wall or something, and find Xyzta and Jim.

"Xyzta!" he called desperately, as he was unable to find anything solid in the following seconds, "Jim!" No reply came, only a shattering fading echo returned to his ears.

"Xyzta! Jim!" he called again. Only a mocking echo replied.

"XYZTA!" He was starting to get desperate, and had fallen on the ground and was crawling on all four.

A cold breeze met his face; a breeze carrying an odour that Angus instantly recognised as Xyzta's. He nearly jumped ahead. His nose guided by the tingling odour directed him just as well as any eyes might have done.

He got closer, the smell stronger.

Suddenly something met Angus' shoulders. A strong, hairy arm stopped him from moving forwards.

Angus tried to get away from the grip, but the effort was useless.

"Don't go any further Mr. McDow." Bobo's shrieking voice pleaded from the whiteness.

"Why?" Angus asked. He wasn't surprised to met Bobo, though a bit annoyed. "Why shouldn't I?"

"You won't find anything you want to find here."

"What do you mean by that?" Angus didn't understand what Bobo was talking about. "Where is Xyzta?"

"She isn't here anymore." Bobo said sadly.

"But I can smell her!" Angus protested.

"You smell an illusion."

And as soon as Bobo said this, Angus sensed a rotting smell hit his nose, mixed only too well with the scent of Xyzta.

"No!" Angus cried as he wriggled out of Bobo's grip.

"Don't!" Bobo cried after him.

It was too late. An icy cold wind brought with it an opening in the whiteness, and a bitter sun illuminated a body on the ground. It was Xyzta, lifeless and cold. Angus tossed his hands around her, buried his face in her bosom, and held around her, desperately trying to find a sign of life or warmth, perhaps even hoping of warming her back to life.

Angus had held her in sorrow for the longest time, when the mist started gathered again. It fought away the sun, took his vision away, making Xyzta fade into the whiteness, even though she was inches away from him.

There was a stillness unlike anything Angus had ever experienced. Even his breathing seemed to have disappeared. He could now no longer see Xyzta, so he let her go; put her gently back on the ground again, and silently walked back to where Bobo had been.

Slowly the sun returned with a faint cold wind.

"Why?" Angus cried to himself. "Why did I leave her?"

"You had a quest to complete." Bobo answered solemnly a little in front of him.

"And look how well that turned out." Angus answered him bitterly.

"Still, your quest is completed." Bobo answered knowingly.

"So what? I failed, Xyzta is dead." Angus looked behind him towards Xyzta. The mist was too dense for him to see her though.

"You didn't fail," Bobo said reassuringly "it looks like you couldn't have done anything to prevent this in any case."

"Then I did indeed fail." Angus was feeling endlessly helpless.

"At least you are alive to keep fighting."

"What?"

"Before she died, Xyzta bade me to urge you to keep fighting against the VoodooLady and her spell over the lands and seas below." Bobo said, "The VoodooLady now has more power than ever, so it's even more important for you to fight against her."

"Why should I bother?" Angus asked.

"Because you are the only hope for young Jim." Bobo said with significance.

"Is Jim alive?" Angus jumped up, hope gleaming in his eyes, and looked at Bobo.

"He was taken by the VoodooLady." Bobo said sadly

Angus' hopes faded a little. "Then I have to rescue him!" He declared.

"You won't succeed."

Angus gave Bobo an angry glare.

"At least not while the VoodooLady is as strong as she is now," Bobo said "you have to weaken her somehow before you can hope to openly attack her, or pull off a rescue."

"How can I do that?" Angus asked, clearly worried about never seeing his son again.

"That you must figure out for yourself," Bobo said.

"How should I know how to handle this problem?" Angus asked. He was feeling that the task at hand would be an impossible one.

"Your latest quest has taught you much about different approaches to solving problems …"

"You know what happened during the quest?" Angus had thought that he had been completely alone during the quest.

"Xyzta could see enough to understand your sufferings, and she wanted you to know that you always were in her heart and that she loved you whatever you might do. She didn't judge you."

Angus started crying. The pain was nearly unbearable. If only she could return, if only for a second, so that he could give her a reply and let her know that he loved her endlessly and would do so eternally.

They had stood there silent for a while when a faint cracking sound and a slight darkening of the mists started to make Bobo anxious.

"You better go now Mr. McDow." He began to pull at Angus' arms.

Angus resisted, but when he saw Bobo's face and its anxious features he agreed to follow.

Bobo quickly followed Angus back towards the gate to the cloud island.

When they had reached their destination Angus had calmed himself, and a thought that had troubled him had taken more and more room in his mind.

"If Xyzta could follow me on my quest, why didn't she notice that the VoodooLady was coming for her?"

Bobo looked sadly into Angus' eyes, put his hands on his shoulders, opened his mouth slightly, and then happened the strangest thing Angus had ever seen in his life: He first noticed that the hair of the monkey was falling from him to the floor in great chunks, then the flesh was churning into dust, and finally the bones faded away. Bobo had in seconds evaporated into dust just before Angus' eyes, leaving a last fragrance of the living Xyzta though not any answer to the question that Angus had asked. Angus would have spent much time speculating over the meaning or possible message of this strange incident if it hadn't been for the fact that the Xyzta fragrance seemed to make him extremely tired. It didn't take long before he had fallen to sleep.

He later awoke in the altar of the clearing. He rose up and left the clearing, then the island and finally the cloud island and cloud sea all together.

He would never return to the clouds that had been his home for ten years, or three months.

The End

_Writers note: (for especially interested readers) _

_Here ends the tale of Angus McDow and his final relations with the now famous "Big Whoop" crew. The tale also covered some parts of his short family life, and his earlier connections with the dubious Marco LaGrande. _

_It should now be clear for anyone what happened to the crew of The Grog Villains Beauty, after "The Beginning". _

_For anyone wondering what happened to Angus after he left the island (which remains are now so fondly is called "Monkey Island"), I won't tell much further than is written here; there is truly little more to it than what everyone already knows about him. _

_He couldn't handle the world's sufferings any longer. He couldn't keep up fighting the VoodooLady. He tried, but gave up, even gave up hoping for his son to be alive. _

_His nightmares were the major contributor to this despair. It is highly possible that the VoodooLady had gotten some of her brainwashing powder to work on Angus, and that his experiences in the dream world intensified this, and literally made him crazy. _

_His vision of reality was severely damaged after he first entered the dream world. His adventures in this book showed this, and he would still have problems afterwards. _

_He accepted at one time that he was still in the dream world, and that the VoodooLady was just another character in a nightmare. If this was his thoughts when he died, is unknown however. _

_He spent his days secluded in a cave on Phatt, far away from society. Only Marco would some days visit him, giving him food and the occasional news from the triisland area. _

_The inhabitants knew Angus was in the cave, but didn't care. Eventually they heard little about him, and it was generally accepted that he was dead when the stories about Marco and 'the unknown avenger' started appearing. _

_This story is based upon Angus McDow's own writings; both diary entries and letters addressed to me. He knew the importance of the history he had been a part of, and had written much after I met him in the tavern decades ago. _

_Even though Angus had given me much information for this book, it has taken me a long time to get myself to write it. It has taken decades only to start working on it, and properly chronicle the sources. Its darkness has drawn me away from it. Now, however, I feel that it is fitting that this book might find its place among the other writings in the Secret Library of Phatt alongside my earlier "Rebellion" writings. _

_I no longer feel the need to sugar-coat the rebellions earliest days. Angus McDow doesn't need to be an iconic figure of great legends anymore. It is time that the all good heroic Angus, is replaced by the actual figure that lived and breathed in the triisland area. _

_I wished with this book to show the human behind the legends, and portray the truth about our first rebel in the fight against the Voodoo Lady. I feel that this book might serve as a good starting point for an even truer collection of writings from the rebellion. _

_We should all remember how the Secret Library started, with log-books and diaries who told the truth, compared to the alterations of reality that the Voodoo Lady had created. I hope that I can create a homage to that past, and perhaps make this book a symbol of the organisation's love for truth; that in search for the whole truth we will even throw away epic legends about our grandest heroes. _

_I have in this story tried to hold myself to the truth in every situation as far as possible. I have tried to write joyous in joyous situations, and coldly grim, in grim situations. I must admit that some poetic liberties have crept into the story at various stages, but I strongly believe that these additions to the raw material is not only fitting and true, but also essential for you to understand the true nature of Angus McDow. _

_I see my literary works as now complete. I didn't become a great writer as I in my youth had dreamed of, but I hope I have at least brought some clarity to the masses. _

_Written by, the now experienced and humble, Jim McDow from the written accounts of, the most devoted and esteemed, Angus McDow._


	8. Credits

It would be impossible for me to take full credit for this story. The characters (most of them, at least), locations, and idea for the story line have been taken from the Monkey Island™ games, products of the LucasArts firm. Therefore, most of the credits should go to them.

I must also thank Dalixam, for having a fan-novel section on his site, and also for posting my little story in that section.

But people have also helped me in writing this tale. I will now name the ones who I have found especially helpful for me and my story (arranged after time of helping):

For "The Beginning" I will name these:

Ludomaniac: This dear friend, who often has helped me on earlier stories, read the first drafts of the two first chapters. His comments have been crucial for the basis or backbone of the story. Without his help, it is uncertain if this story would be here today. He also read through the whole story before I added the last chapter. His remarks to the whole story have given me greater understanding of my writing in the eyes of others.

The comments on my story have been a major encouragement for the continual work on my story. Whenever I was unable to easily continue, and was close to giving up, I reread the comments that had been written by kind souls, and regained my confidence in myself and the story. If it hadn't been for the comments, it is likely that I would have never managed to even finish my second chapter.

From these many kind souls who commented on my story, I would especially like to thank:

Ryback: His comments were always useful, since they saw the clear errors in my chapters. He also hosted my story on his own fanfiction site.

monkeyislandfanatic: She has been a major help in both grammatical corrections of my chapters, and quality assurance. She has also given me loads of help with names (like the pumpkin city, Stew Bram, the admiral). She has been my greatest helper throughout chapters 2-6. Without her, my story would probably still be at chapter 3, or perhaps chapter 4, and with tons of grammatical errors, and poorly made up names. It would also be much more varied quality of the chapters (in a bad way).

I have also found great use of the fantastic forum-thread, Ask Haggis#3, and thus would like to thank these people:

Haggis: He cleared my uncertainty about the true Treasure Fleet. He also taught me that the proper name of the ship's kitchen is galley, and that the lumberjack on board ships is usually a carpenter. He also answered a whip-related question about the names, and the history of pumpkins. And lastly he found a small animal at the size of a rabbit that lived in the Caribbean.

raVenimage: He showed me the correct use of the phrase, "To kiss the cannon's daughter" (translated directly from a Norwegian translation of the phrase). He also found a couple of good possibilities for the rabbit-like animal. I, in fact, used his Solodendon until my last draft of my story.

For "The Last Rebel" I will name these:

Tyraa Rane: She has kindly correcting my numerous errors in the first three chapters, and she has given me important comments and insight along the way.

monkeyislandfanatic: She has once again been a major help in both grammatical corrections of my chapters, and quality assurance. Many of the chapters would still be at a horrible state if not for her editorial scrutiny.


End file.
